


Every Thought in Between

by SomeCoolName



Series: Every Thought in Between [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: 1970s, Angst and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Dirty Talk, Drama & Romance, Drug Use, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, First Time, Friendship/Love, Getting Back Together, Humor, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Medication, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:19:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeCoolName/pseuds/SomeCoolName
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after their mission in Paris: All is good now that they were able to stop Raven from killing Trask; the future is even looking better. Without anywhere else to go, Erik ends up going back to the Xavier Mansion with Charles and Hank. Tension in the house rises as old wounds reopen and the three of them are forced to confront each other’s emotions. Erik doesn’t mind, as he needs a place to stay and as long as he doesn’t say anything that will make Charles punch him in the face, they’re good. But it’s not that easy to live under the same roof as your ex. And it’s definitely not acceptable to Erik, the way Hank is looking at Charles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, folks!  
> Well, here's my first attempt to the X-Men fandom and let's just say I reallyreallyreally liked to write this story and I hope you'll like it as much.  
> Extra billion kudos and bear hugs for the amazing  deadoralive001 who's more than a beta as she's the guardian angel of this fanfic. The story won't exist without her so thank you, so much, dear, for your time and patience, you're a marvel.  
> Also, a huge thank you to Sunkissedtar for her help!
> 
> Kudos and comments are more than appreciated ❤

Hank turns his head to Charles who still hasn’t said a word. He’s sitting on a beige armchair, his arms resting on the thick armrests. His eyebrows are a bit frowned above his ice-blue eyes that are partially squinted against the light illuminating the hotel room. Leaning against a marble furniture, Raven plays with her pearls between her fingers. Her eyes too are fixed on Logan who is standing firmly in the middle of the living room, his bag in his right hand.

“It’s the only solution,” Logan adds, nodding.

Hank opens his lips, ready to answer but Charles raises a hand to interrupt.

“What about the both of you?” Charles asks.

“I’ll take Raven to a safe place. Just to be sure they won’t find her. And if everything works out fine… Well, everything will be fine, I guess.”

They all look at each other and Hank slightly coughs. They did it, they retrieved Raven before she was able to enter the meeting and kill Trask. But even if nothing has concretely changed in their lives yet, Logan seems to be satisfied to have accomplished his mission -fifty years before it was even given to him. Hank still has a headache because of jetlag, he won’t think about the complexity of the situation even more.

“Okay and what about him?” Charles asks, pointing a finger to Erik who is standing next to the window. He turns his head without his name being mentioned.

“I thought that…”Logan starts uncertainly and it makes Charles burst out laughing because he already understands.

“No,” he says then presses his hands on the armrests and gets up before walking to the mini-bar next to Hank who is keeping an eye on what the professor is pouring. _A bottle of water_.

“What do you want to do with him?” Hank asks, taking the bottle Charles is handing him, to take off the recalcitrant cap.

“He can go with you. To the mansion.”

Hank’s eyes open wide in mild shock. Charles succeeds in drinking and laughing at the same time

“I know it sounds weird but you guys get along just fine in the future.”

“Not weird but completely insane,” Charles whispers as he leans toward Hank.

“Either that or you let him vanish,” adds Logan.

“That’s something I can do,” Erik intervenes for the first time.

It only takes one word from him to make Charles go tense. He curses as he turns his back to the scene and Hank whispers in his turn:

“Professor… It might be safer if he stays with us for a while. Just so we can be sure of what he’s up to and that he doesn’t get his helmet back.”

Charles’ frown deepens on his forehead.

“Alright,” he relented, crossing the room towards the door, “but don’t count on me to take care of him.”

He harshly slams the door behind him and Logan sighs.

“Yeah, no shit…”

The flight back to Westchester isn’t the most pleasant one.

 

* * *

 

Erik looks all around him. It can't be the mansion he knew. The plants, though are fortunately still very much alive, have already grown along the walls while grass has grown between the cracks of the pavement in the courtyard. From where he stands, he can even see a broken window. Aside from his own footsteps and breathing, there’s not a single noise that can discriminate the mansion from the dead silence of the grave.

“School is closed now?” He asks behind the two men who are entering the mansion.

“Yeah, since a few years ago,” Hank answers, quickly interrupted by Charles.

“Maybe you haven’t heard about Vietnam?”

“I thought you didn't want to speak to me?” Erik says, smiling.

Charles shows him his middle finger above his shoulder. He has not faced him since they went on the plane where they passed by each other when one of them needed to walk a bit. Since they’re out, Charles seems to tire more easily to the point where his back is slightly arched and his legs don’t seem so stable anymore. Erik observes from afar. Everything has changed since Cuba anyway. He doesn’t belong anymore in _Charles’ world_ and he can feel it physically. Let’s just say it’s best if he keeps his distance from Charles to avoid a new punch in the face.

In the mansion entrance, there’s a musty smell and the chandelier is hanging morosely with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs . It doesn’t surprise Erik that Charles’ project didn’t work out but it’s still weird to see the house in this pathetic state. It’s been almost ten years since he set foot in here but the fact remains that they had really great times, when an alliance between all the members of this _wonderful_ family still seemed possible.

Charles went upstairs with Hank without addressing him another word and Erik actually doesn’t care much. He lets down his bag on the ground which contains the few clothes he bought in Paris ( _what the hell is going on with that broken table in the center of the entrance?_ ) and puts his hands in his pockets before having a look around. He gets closer to one of the windows facing the garden, leans his forehead against it and cups his eyes with his hands to try to see something despite the darkness. The backyard looks exactly like the front: neglected. There’s definitely something sad to see the house in that state.

“I’ll take you to your room,” Hank says when he gets back to the first floor.

Erik nods and gets his bag before following the Beast to the East wing. They stop in front of a door, Hank doesn’t wait and opens it. The room is quite small, without any charm or warmth.

“I’ll let you sleep on the first floor, so if you want to betray us all and leave in the middle of the night, you won’t have to walk too much before getting to the front door.”

“That’s funny,” Erik says nonchalantly with a gaze that says that it’s definitely not.

He throws the bag at his right, rests his hands on his hips and quickly inspects the room. Even his cell was more classy. The Xavier reign has undeniably lost its splendor.

“Are you living here too?” Erik wonders.

“Yes.”

Erik screws up his eyes, waits, but Hank doesn’t add anything. Alright, the scientist is still unlikeable. It’s good actually, _comforting_ , to see proof that some things actually don’t change. Finally, Hank nods - a confused and useless gesture - and leaves. It’s been years since Erik can walk around freely and yet, his reflexes are back in a snap. First, he counts how many metal objects are around him (36, he felt them as soon as he entered the room), then he looks for all the exists ( _door, window, he is on the first floor which will be easier_ _;_ for ‘betrayal _,’ his mind supplies sarcastically_ ) and finally, he checks for the closet where he can put his stuff in. He doesn’t like it when his clothes are crumpled or dirty. Too many memories.

He opens his bags, takes out the sweater and two shirts. He hangs them on metallic hangers without the help of his hands. He’s quite tired because of the jetlag and he could easily fall asleep but the simple fact that he _can_ walk out of his room pushes him into pursuing his inspection of the estate.

He goes by the kitchen that he knows to be filled with so much food back in the days, and can’t hold back the disappointment at the dismal sight of (or lack of) food now. Still he’s hungry, so he doesn’t stop himself from emptying the fridge without much other thought. A quick detour by the cellar and he pinches two bottles of wine he’ll hide in his bedroom to drink later. He barely stays in the libraries because they didn’t change and doesn’t even walk into Charles’ office. He’ll rummage through his things when Charles and Hank goes out.

Down the gigantic staircase, he stops and thinks about the last time he went upstairs. The last night he and Charles played a chess game that they never finished. He doesn’t quite remember who proposed that they should go to sleep and that they finish the game once they get back from Cuba. It was such a stupid idea that, for posterity, let’s say it was Charles’.

He doesn’t want to think about all that and climbs, step after step. He turns left and smiles when he recognizes the hallway where his old room was. Under the last door on the right, there’s light and Erik didn’t forget that room either. Charles has always been someone very ( _too much_ ) attached to traditions. Erik told him more than once how creepy it is to still sleep in his childhood bedroom, but Charles only smiles with a graceful pout when he tells him that. Erik never really figured out how to respond to this particular moue.

Maybe Erik should say the _old Charles_ , because this hippie with long hair and the breath of a drunkard has nothing to do with Charles Xavier, the mutant with a strong sense of unity and dreams of peace, too big for his short stature.

On the other hand, Erik doesn’t think he himself has really changed.

There are noises and Erik slightly moves back to hide behind one of those stupid statues inspired by Rome or Athens or whatever. The hallway is still plunged in darkness; it’s only because Charles’ bedroom door opens that a ray of light illuminates the burgundy rug... And Hank, who just got out of the room. He’s carrying a tray and even if Erik can’t quite see what’s on it, he can feel two metal objects and understands: _fork and knife_ . He moves back a bit more to avoid the Beast’s sense of smell, who apparently brought Charles’ dinner to his bedroom.  
  
Well, _that’s_ new for sure.

 

* * *

 

Hank pushes on his glasses with one finger, to put them back up on his nose. He loves this particular brand of cereals, they’re coloring his milk and are heavily sugared. When Charles still used to take his breakfast downstairs with him, he liked to joke about their different morning rituals. Darjeeling tea versus apple juice. Eggs and bacon versus star-shaped cereals. Hank had laughed about that, embarrassed and he mentally swore to himself that he’d stop eating like a teenager and without even using his powers, Charles felt the change in his mood. He reassured him, saying everyone had his own preference and that Hank shouldn’t change a thing about the way he was eating, if he liked how things were. It must have been one of the last conversations they had, when Charles actually showed some of his mentoring nature. Today, he doesn’t even want to eat outside his bedroom.

“Is there some butter left?”

Hank stops his very focused reading of the cereal packaging’s backside and raises his nose to point at what Erik’s looking for, hiding behind a pile of clean plates he has to put back in the cupboard.

He doesn’t talk to Erik not only because he’s not very chatty in the morning but also because he doesn’t know what to say. Yes, he is the one who accepted Logan’s proposal to bring back Erik here (and sadly, it really was the only option, because of all the fuss about his escape) but the fact remains that they don’t necessarily have to be friends. Being polite would be a good start.

“He doesn’t eat?”

“No, he does. In his room.”

“You brought up his breakfast then?”

Hank doesn’t answer and fixes his eyes on the brightly colored backside of the box. _Marvellous, a maze_.

“Are you his skivvy or something?”

This time, he puts down his spoon and raises his head.

“No, I’m not his _skivvy_. It’s just that Charles needs me.”

“... To bring him something to eat in his bed. So, dinner, breakfast… Tell me, do you bring him lunch and the traditional five o’clock tea too?”

Hank raises his eyes to the ceiling and his hand tightens on his knees. Erik really shouldn’t say anything about this whole situation, he’s in no position to do so.

“How could you possibly know that… Nevermind. No, he takes his lunch downstairs. And I usually serve him tea in the winter garden.”

“Alright, you’re not his skivvy then,” concludes Erik, munching on the now buttered toast. “You’re his nanny.”

He finally leaves and let silence invade the kitchen. Hank doesn’t feel like doing the games on the back of his cereal box anymore.

 

* * *

 

Spring is a good time to discover liberty again. That’s what Erik is thinking about, sitting on the grass in the middle of the park, body turned to the mansion, its walls and fissures. It’s like meeting with an old friend, you recognize his laughter and you silently find the wrinkles on his face regrettable. Maybe it’s Charles who let himself collapse like his house, or maybe it's because he didn't know how to stand straight that he figured his walls shouldn't either.

It’s not quite true, actually and that's what Erik doesn't get. He saw the bullet - _he felt it_ \- tearing into Charles’ back, digging in his bones, tearing up his muscles. He heard about the wheelchair. But here Charles is, _standing_ , high enough to punch him right in the face. But it’s 1973 and maybe human medicine found a way to fix his mistake.

Because that's what it was, a mistake. A foolish thing. With irreversible and dire consequences. The starting point of the only excuses Erik ever said. So low, so very low. Almost imperceptible. Not strong enough to cut through air. In a loop. Again. Again. No one else was supposed to hear those words so that they’ll forever exist only in Charles’ mind, in his body, so close to his wound.

But Charles never answered. Not with his words or thoughts. He just showed him his wet eyes and left Erik, the school, and his promises. Today, he walks around in a house that seems to be barely keeping itself up, much like its owner.

 

* * *

 

Hank stands up a bit more on his toes, raising his arm to catch the leather bag on top of the Greek encyclopedia.

“Don't fall, Hank. I’d prefer if this house doesn't become a refuge for paraplegics.”

Hank smiles despite the professor’s questionable sense of humor and watches him from above his shoulder.

“Don’t stay stuff like that.”

“It’s best to laugh…” Charles distractedly answers, standing close to the table, his eyes fixed on the papers he is sorting.

It’s not Charles Xavier’s black humour that will calm Hank’s excitement tonight. It took years but the professor has finally accepted: they’re about to start the renovation works for the mansion. Hank broached the idea to open the school once more but it’s something that put Charles into a rage that revived his pain. Plus, with Erik wandering around, it’s better not to lay it on thick. Meanwhile, they’re searching for plans, signed by the hand of Xavier great-grandparents’ architect. Charles accepted the renovation works only at the condition that him and Hank supervise the whole thing, and that they hire only the best people. Hank doesn’t quite know how to determine who are the best, but he’ll do what he can and ensure that Charles finally feels a bit of pleasure in doing something else than killing his liver with all the alcohol he is consuming.

“I think I found them,” Hank says gladly.

He gets down the stepladder and waits for Charles to make some space on the desk before putting down the leather sleeve. When he unknots the black cord, half of it stays in his hand. Both of them look at each other and smile above their discovery.

“Bravo Hank.”

“I knew I saw them somewhere,” he smirks when Charles leans a hand on his shoulder.

They take a chair each and look at the yellowed paper. Hank writes down all of Charles’ remarks on a notepad. He adds two exclamation points whenever he feels the professor’s excitement in his voice for a room in particular ( _“Maybe we could fix the roof of the aisle where we put the wood!”_ ). They’re discussing the second-floor plan when Erik enters the office.

“I’m going to sleep,” he tells them.

Hank looks at his watch, 11:24 PM. The evening has passed too quickly.

“Do whatever you want,” answers the professor very calmly, without even looking at him.

Hank helps him delicately turn a piece of the old paper and holds back a sigh when he feels Erik’s smell stronger. He is right behind them.

“Are you going to renovate the mansion?”

“Why would you possibly care?” Charles snarls, withdrawing into himself in a snap.

It shows in his biting tone and his eyes hovered by his dark eyebrows. He internally sighs. It's always difficult for Hank to bring out the professor from this state of rage, it'll be so much better if Erik could leave them alone.

“I don't. It's not me who want to reopen the school.”

“I don't want to bloody re-open it!” Charles shouts, getting up from his chair. His left knee is trembling and that makes Hank get up on his feet too.

“Calm down, Charlie, I just came to talk a bit,” Erik says with a grin, seeming completely unaffected by Charles’ biting remarks.

 _Charlie_ , Hank tilts his head. He never heard anyone call him that and it doesn't seem to please Charles either because he clenches his fingers, obviously in an effort to prevent himself from getting closer to the body he must be dreaming to beat the hell out.

“Be grateful I even let you sleep here and bugger off,” Charles says as he would spit, and his right knee which starts to tremble too.

“Professor…” Hank calls calmly.

“As you let me sleep under your roof, won't it be better if we could talk, without you getting angry every time I say something?”

“Trust me, I'm trying!” Charles shouts and this time his back is arching and Hanks moves forward to prevent him from falling.

The professor bites his lower lip and tries to hide his pain. Hank helps him sit down, checks his eyes, _glassy_ , and his breathing , _heavy_. Charles didn't have his serum since the day Logan arrived at the mansion, it's time to give him another dose. Hank, kneeling in front of him, barely looks at Erik behind his shoulder and says:

“I think we’ll call it a night.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Beast,” Erik spits with vehemence laced with an unspoken threat.

“Me neither,” returns Hank.  
  
He stands up and faces him this time. Erik looks up and down on him, probably thinking that he’s superior but Hank couldn’t care less of what he thinks. So he shows him the door with a gesture. After a couple of tense moments that Erik seems to be contemplating whether or not to go peacefully, he finally relents and follows Hank as he sees him out. He looks into his eyes when he closes the wooden panels between them and reads in Erik’s eyes a promise that shout something like _It’s the last time you throw me out_. Hank sighs once he’s gone and quickly moves back to the chair where Charles is trembling.

“I’m sorry, professor. I shouldn’t have accepted Logan’s suggestion…”

“The serum,” Charles orders with a harsh voice.

Hank nods. “It’s in your bedroom.”

Charles doesn’t look Hank directly in the eye. He slightly tilts forward, scratches his knees over his jeans and tries to move his right leg. He bites harder on his lips and whines very quietly but Hank knows. So he leans, lets Charles wrap his arms around his neck and lifts the professor up, one arm around his back, the other under his knees.

“Wait,” Charles asks.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want him to see me like this.”

 _Weakened_ , Hank understands.

“You’re in pain, I can’t wait that…”

“Yes. Wait.”

Hank gets closer and places the both of them behind the closed door. He shuts his eyes and they don’t make a sound. Hank profoundly breathes in. _Erik’s smell_ . He must be on the other side, trying to eavesdrop on them. Hank nods once and Charles understands. He smiles, as if he's saying _I told you so_ , and it’s as funny as it is difficult to see that, even after ten years, Charles knows Erik so well. It’s only when the smell has disappeared after a few minutes that Hank opens the door as quietly as he can and carries the professor to the second floor.

Step after step, Charles’ smell, whom hairs are barely touching his nose, is becoming the strongest scent again.

  
And things are back to normal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kudos and comments. This is really motivating ♥  
> I hope you'll enjoy chapter two too! And as always, let's all give a big hug to deadoralive001, who's an amazing guardian angel :)

The renovation work is slowly moving on. Erik thinks it’ll be faster with someone who can control metal but he’s absolutely sure Charles would rather _hara-kiri_ himself with his paper knife engraved with his initials than accept Erik’s help. This gives him time to decide what he'll do once he leaves the mansion. Because nothing is keeping him here. Despite being offered a room to stay in, it is quite the contrary actually because everything about this place is giving him the silent yet insistent order that he has to leave. He doesn't know where he'll go yet. He thought about Argentina for a while but disappearing in South America doesn't seem very fair. He gives himself two weeks before he packs his things and disappear, anyway.

The weather is nice at this time, wherein the day ends and the sound from the ongoing renovation is not loud enough to make Erik want to push the workers’ helmets in on their heads. He takes advantage of the fact that Charles and Beast left for New Rochelle, to walk around, particularly in Charles’ office which he’s rummaging through at that precise moment.

It’s a reflex that he’ll never get rid of: files with names and pictures, he reads them, commits as much information as possible to his memory. To see again all the faces of those people like them, whom Charles and him went to search all around the United States, it makes him smile. But it also makes him think they blew it off. Maybe the project was too big or maybe they weren't ready. It's still a terrible waste.

He closes the cupboard he was looking through and opens another one. There's a folder that says ‘1968.’ Inside, there are papers stamped with a red _U.S ARMY_. There's only their birth date next to their picture but Erik knows (without knowing how) that all of these men are dead now.

He slams the door and sits on Charles’ leather armchair. He slowly turns on it, pinches his lower lip between his forefinger and thumb, while looking all around him. The room is dirty. There’s even dust on the Tiffany lamp. The old Charles would have never accepted something like that. Erik used to like this slight obsession for cleanliness, a trait that they both share. But now, Charles is a hippie. Erik liked him better when he was a paraplegic.

“Can I help?” Charles asks suddenly, standing in the doorway.

“Charles,” Erik grins, caressing the wooden table with his fingers.

The professor raises his eyes to the ceiling, enters the room with a plastic bag in his hand and tries to throw his jacket on an armchair but misses it. Erik’s nails scratch the wood.

“What are you doing here?” Charles asks, now sitting on a chair in front of the desk.

“I'm taking a walk.”

“You have the whole park at your disposal.”

“I prefer your office.”

Charles laughs mirthlessly and leans against the chair, running a hand in his _when-are-you-going-to-get-rid-of-all-of-those_ hair.

“Can you put your jacket on a hook, please?” Erik asks, trying to smile.

Charles raises his left eyebrow. He turns around to see what Erik is talking about and looks at the jacket on the floor before pulling a face. He opens his pouty mouth, certainly to ask Erik what’s going on, but then, he remembers. Clothes piled up on the ground and lined up shoes are some of the things that Erik can't stand; a sight which always brings back old ghosts he does not want to see again. So Charles gets up and does as Erik asked. The German can physically feel the weight leaving his mind. Charles is back on his chair now and he’s taking a bottle of Gin out of the plastic bag. Erik grumbles.

“Seriously, Charles?”

“Oh, yes, please Erik do dare to comment on my lifestyle, I'd be thrilled to know what you can possibly say about it,” Charles says with a tone leaking with sarcasm while unscrewing the cap of his bottle.

He leans on the shelf on his left and picks up only one glass. Erik finds it a bit insulting.

“You're better than that.”

“Bloody hell, Erik, just.. Shut up, okay? Shut up,” Charles orders, shaking his head.

_‘That's what you want to be now? An alcoholic?’_ tries to scream out of Erik’s head, as Charles taught him to when they had to resort to silent conversations in front of humans b ut Charles is still looking at the transparent liquid and doesn't seem bothered by the word Erik used. He insists . ‘ _You're pathetic’, Charles._

No reaction.

“You don't hear me?” he asks, stunned.

Charles has his lips a few millimeters away from his glass. His eyes look on the right, on the left, like if he's a character from a Tex Avery cartoon, before he answers:

“Hear what?”

Erik puts two fingers on his own temple, imitating the gesture that Charles used to do a few years ago and the simple fact that the professor sees this movement in a mirror makes him move back and leave his drink.

“ _This_ ,” Erik almost growls because Charles is not even listening to him anymore.

Sure, he asked Charles to stay out of his head but they worked together long enough to teach Erik how to mentally use words Charles could get without digging in too deep. Charles is plainly ignoring him, like the brat he can be and that pisses Erik off so much that he stands up to leave the room. He's trying very hard not to knock over or punch whatever is in his way when Charles calls him:

“Erik,” Charles says from his chair, elbow on the back of the seat, and he looks at him directly in the eyes. “Forget what we used to have.”

Erik slams the doors behind him and fervently hopes the noise will annoy Charles enough to make him drink all the gin in one gulp and have an ethylic coma.

 

* * *

 

Hank is playing with the bracelet on his wrist, looking at the sea by the office window where Charles and him are waiting. He likes New Rochelle. It's a shame the house is so far from the city, otherwise he'd spend more time here. Even though it’s windy most of the time, the walk along the sea is one of his favorite things to do in the area. He used to come here when he was a kid with his parents and sisters, and even if he never felt the sand under his feet because he had to keep his shoes on, it's still pleasant to sink in it at every step.

They're here to meet with Suppe, one of the bankers and advisers in charge of the mansion, to talk about new bank accounts to open as the Xavier fortune grows every year thanks to all the investments settled since a century ago. It never fails to bother Charles when he comes here because the banker greets him with a profuse bow. The banker bends so low that Charles seriously considers offering him physiotherapy sessions in case he breaks something, as he once told Hank. But right now there's something else that makes him shake his leg and nibble the tip of his thumb.

“Are you alright, professor?” Hank calls to distract him from his thoughts.

Charles once winks and straightens up on his chair.

“Don't worry,” he reassures him with a smile that could be warmer.

Hank nods and turns again to the open window. Even from where they stand, they can smell the sea air.

“We could buy some fish for tonight. It's been a long time since we had some.”

Charles agrees and starts to enumerate all the other things they should get now that they're in the city (especially batteries, there's not a single radio working back home anymore). There're still a few seconds of silence before the professor fulminates about Suppe being late and without any real reason, Hank understands what's wrong:

“Is this about Erik?”

“I beg your pardon?” Charles asks, bewildered. 

“What's bothering you. It's Erik, isn’t it? Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

Charles smiles and reveals his teeth before slightly shaking his head.

“Hank, it's… No. No, don't ask him to leave. He's not going to stay here forever in any case. He exasperates me but that’s not a sufficient reason to throw him out.”

“Of course it is,” Hank says, sounding offended.

The professor is kind enough to welcome and endure the presence of the German for a month now. He doesn't owe him anything more. With this Watergate scandal thing, which the newspapers love since April, no one cares about Lehnsherr’s escape anymore. Plus, it'd be good for the both of them if Erik chooses to leave for a while. Or permanently.

“Do you think it was a mistake to welcome him in the first place?” Charles asks so seriously that his English accent is stronger than ever.

“No. I mean, we didn't have any choice and even if he's not the best guest, it's better to know he’s here than out there trying to kill Nixon.”

“Do you think he has developed a weird kink for killing the president in duty?” the professor smiles.

“I prefer not to know what's going on inside his head,” Hank says with a laugh before realizing it was an awkward thing to say. “I mean… Well, you know what I mean. I’m sorry, professor.”

“Don't be. He doesn't know about my powers. Or my lack of them. And I want it to stay that way. Do I have your word?”

“I won't say a thing,” Hank swears by slowly closing his eyes.

Charles thanks him and the both of them stand up when Suppe enters the room, to greet him.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s excessively warm tonight. Erik could read outside in the garden but the light on the patio hasn't been linked to the power yet. He stays in the living-room, sitting on one of the armchairs and flips through an English book that Charles keeps in one of his desk drawer. It's bothering as hell, a story about love and succession in the English country at the beginning of the nineteenth century, so Erik sighs most of the time and doesn't read the parts where the heroine cries to herself in despair, not being able to declare her love for her neighbor to her family.

He didn't see Hank and Charles since the afternoon but he heard footsteps above him. They must be playing contract bridge in the professor’s room. In the end, it's like a retirement home here, possibly even more miserable, and Erik actually misses the youth who used to wreak havoc in the hallways (to a point where he almost smashed their skulls against the walls once or twice). _I’d give anything to hear the sounds of smashing china_ _, for fuck’s sake_.

He closes the book and puts it on the table in front of him. He’s thinking he should go to sleep when a scream breaks through the ceiling and Erik finds himself getting up. It brings back memories he thought he had buried deep enough to never feel again. But it’s coming back. It’s coming back and it's because of Charles’ voice.

Erik runs and climbs the stairs. He opens the door and in his bed, there's Charles. Sitting at his side, in a fat, green armchair, is Hank.

“What’s going on?” Erik asks urgently but Hank doesn't answer; his eyes are fixed on the bed where his hands are moving quickly, blocking Erik’s view. Erik gets closer, Charles doesn't scream anymore. He's covered in sweat and shivers, eyes closed, face barely recognizable. Barely human.

“Hank,” Erik growls to call the young man who barely looks at him before inspecting a syringe he's holding in front of his focused eyes.

“Two seconds,” is his only answer.

Charles opens an eye and the second one. Erik thinks about the first night they came back from Paris, when Charles had let himself fall into his armchair as if standing up was not possible anymore. Erik thought it was because of all the alcohol he drank on the plane, but tonight it's not the same reason that makes him shiver with an obvious and unbearable pain. It almost looks like Charles is crying, even if his cheek are as dry as the words he uses to speak to Erik. He’s whispering a litany that Erik can't hear and his fingers are pressing his left forearm. Hank uncovers the professor’s white skin and rubs a cotton ball, presses the point of the needle on the prominent vein and slightly leans forward above Charles who is trying to keep his eyes open. They're looking at each other now and the younger breathes in through his nose: an example that Charles follows. The needle pierces the skin, sinks deeper, then slowly disappears. And it hurts, it always does, but that seems to relieve Charles whose head lays down against the pillow. Charles keeps his fingers a few inches away from the needle that Hank takes off after he practically emptied it into Charles’ bloodstream, whatever it was inside. The syringe is now back in a metal box before Hank takes Charles’ hand in his own and _holds_.

_It's a routine_ , thinks Erik and that's the most terrible thing about it. _It's a routine_.

Charles murmurs again words that don't exist and his head gently turns from right to left. Erik gets closer. He takes a chair that he pulls to the other side of the bed and he doesn't care if he's making a lot of noise as Charles already seems unconscious.

“What's that?”

“A sedative,” Hank explains curtly, apparently not very pleased by the prospect of having to hold a conversation with Erik.

“A rather powerful sedative.”

“Just what he needs.”

They're both looking at Charles’ face which is still blank but at least isn't trembling anymore. It may not be the best way to fall asleep but at least he doesn't seem to be suffering either.

“It's because of the bullet, you know,” Hank suddenly says with a sharp voice. “The bullet that hit his sp--”

“I know,” Erik interrupts him, neutral.

He had already apologized and that didn't help Charles’ condition. What's the point in repeating himself?

“He walks, but he suffers?”

“It's… A bit more complicated.”

“Make it simple,” he orders while slowly closing his eyes, already pissed off by the scientist’s superior air.

“It's my treatment. Well, a derivative of the treatment I take. It helps him walk. And it calms him too. It doesn't put him to sleep, strictly speaking but it's… Well, it makes him sleep if he wants to and it just soothes him down if he needs to walk after that.”

Erik nods. Charles’ face starts to turn pink on his cheek and the tip of his nose. His lips are slightly parted, a few locks of his way-too-long hair stuck on his forehead by sweat that Erik itches to move away. But he doesn't want to wake him up. So he doesn't move.

 

* * *

 

It’s one o’clock in the morning and the eighth line of the book that Hank is currently holding in his hands still hasn’t made sense despite having read the sentence five times in a row without realizing it. He finally gives up and closes it, passes a hand on his face and gets up to stretch out his legs. At the end of the gigantic bedroom, Erik is sitting next to the fireplace, eyes fixed on the alcohol trolley where Charles stores a collection that seems too much for one man.

“We can leave him,” Hank says without raising his voice.

“Won’t he wake up?”

“It practically never happens. If he does, I try to make him sleep without giving him the rest of the serum… Well, I try to limit the doses.”

Erik nods before adding:

“Go to bed.”

It’s amazing how this man doesn’t speak, he _orders_ . Hank has never liked him (it’s not something he should be ashamed of , _no one_ likes Erik) and still today, hearing his voice only gives Hank the familiar desire to ask him to shut up every time he opens his mouth. He knows the feeling is mutual so everything is right and fair.

He puts on his sweater, takes the tray with Charles’ empty plate and tries to find something he could say before leaving the bedroom. He can’t find anything so he stays silent and closes the door behind him with the help of his elbow.

 

* * *

 

Erik opens his eyes. Still sitting next to the fireplace, he doesn’t know why he woke up - maybe it’s because of the heat, or the fact that he tries to sleep on an armchair, or…

_A whine._

He gets up, bangs his feet against the coffee table standing nearby and gets closer to the bed where Charles is writhing. Erik looks around for the light switch but Charles’ voice prevents him from doing anything else other than lean to him.

“Hank…” he murmurs, lifting his hands to blindly reach for something.

Erik distinguishes the long fingers moving in the air, bitten by darkness, barely visible and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Calm down,” he tries.

“Hank, please, Hank…” Charles begs with a wheezing voice and something akin to anger burns at the pit of Erik’s stomach when he understands that barely conscious, Charles Xavier is only capable of saying Beast’s name.

“He’s not here,” Erik growls, catching his hand with his own maybe a bit more forcefully than he intended to. “Go back to sleep, Charles.”

The younger man’s fingers react by gripping the hand in his and this time, his eyes open. He recognizes Erik, swallows, making a guttural sound and asks, forcing out every syllable:

“The syringe.”

It’s still here, in his box. Hank didn’t give him everything.

_Limit the doses._

“ Please. _Erik_.”

And it’s too much. Erik leans to retrieve the needle. He looks for the lamp, shooting into a book without even noticing it. When he manages to turn the light on, it’s not enough to properly illuminate the room but enough to see the naked arm that Charles is stretching out shamelessly.

Erik wants to ask why it’s so painful, why Hank said Charles waking up in the middle of the night practically never happens. Erik wants a lot of things.

He catches the arm without any softness and presses the syringe, imitating Hank’s movements. But his are sharp, without patience or compassion. He doesn’t know how to do it. Charles winces in pain and nods to incite him to stick the needle in.

“I’ll hurt you.”

“N-no…” Charles tries to smile but his lips are trembling too much.

Erik grips the syringe harder without succeeding in sinking it in the cold skin. The words that don’t mean a thing are back, they’re invading the room and Erik gives in, he releases the syringe which stays hanging in the air. He breathes in a long time then breathes out with his mouth. Charles is looking at him. Begging him.

So Erik focuses on the syringe, making it hover down until the needle pierces the skin and gets to the vein. Charles moans and nods harder. He pants _Yes, yes, yes_ that Erik ignores until they transform into _Thank you, thank you, thank you_.

There’s not much solution left when he is done. The syringe retreats quickly and with a simple gesture, Erik makes it go back into the metal box. He fixes the whole thing to put it in the same position that Hank left it in. He waits a few seconds before daring to look at Charles, who is smiling at him without seeming happy. But it’s Erik that he’s looking at, as before, and it’s to him that he said _Thank you_.

Slowly, Erik sits back in his chair. He crosses his legs, his arms. His eyes never leave Charles as he desperately tries to figure out what he’s thinking about. But it’s too late anyway and Charles dives into sleep in less than a minute. His smile, discreet, almost modest, doesn’t leave him, even unconscious as he is. And Erik smiles too.

  
Because tonight, he’s the one who helped Charles.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the last kudos! Kudos and comments fill me with joy ❤

“Goodmorning.”

Hank opens the thick curtains. There’s a warm, radiant sunshine flooding through the window that welcomes the sight of the construction work. He noticed Erik still occupying the sofa, when he first entered the room. Erik seems to have spent the night here as he has a blanket covering his knees and he didn’t say a thing even when Hank walked in and made his way towards the window. He hopes that it’s guilt that reminds him in a pernicious or totally explosive way that it’s because of him that they ended up here.

“Did you sleep well?” Hank asks Charles by getting closer to the bed.

“He didn’t wake up,” Erik says even before the professor gets to answer.  

“Great,” Hank responds, _Even if I’m not talking to you_ _._

He gets the metal box and notices a bruise on Charles’ arm.

“Damn, sorry, professor, I must have jabbed a little too hard yesterday. I was sure I got it right this time…”

“Don’t worry,” Charles reassures him before tugging his sleeve down to cover his skin.

Hank’s not a doctor and mistakes happen. He knows this but he thought he is already used to doing this properly that he was confident he wouldn’t hurt Charles again when he gives him the treatment. Apparently, he is wrong and it makes him hate himself for causing it. It’s a deal with the devil: giving back Charles his legs while taking away his powers from him. But Charles signed, accepted, and framed the contract that he put above his bed a long time ago.

“The gardener will be here at three.”

“Ah, yes. Could you please prepare the photos?”

“Already did.”

“Thank you very much,” Charles smiles and of course it makes Hank smile too.

He gathers his things and says in an overly loud voice, “Well, we’ll let you get dressed now.”

He glances at Erik - for a particularly long time as Lehnsherr seems to never want to do as he’s told, matter of principle - before they both leave the bedroom. They go their separate ways when they reach the first floor and Hank leaves the house to go to his laboratory. He wants to work a bit before the gardener arrives.

Hank has never been particularly interested in architecture or in maintaining a house, even one as grand and beautiful as the Xavier Mansion. But surprisingly, he found that he did not really mind the effort and extra work he had to do everyday, to try to maintain Charles and his house. It’s something natural that settled bit by bit. He wouldn’t even be able to tell how things changed.

Charles and him weren’t really close when they came back from Cuba. Their relationship took root from that of a student and a teacher. Back then, Charles has been his mentor, guiding him through not only his abilities but also his acceptance of what he is and helping him break free from his awkward, younger self. Of course, Hank always respected him, but the age difference and maybe their different educational backgrounds always created a distance between them, only punctuated by courteous and constant niceties that he couldn’t quite drop (‘ _Good morning professor,’ ‘Yes professor,’ ‘Good evening professor’)_. Without having to read his mind, Charles also understood his attraction to Raven years ago, but Hank never permitted himself to comment on Xavier’s love life, even when Moira left.

He doesn't know precisely why it ended up this way but something tells him it's not because of the wheelchair. Moira is too intelligent to be bothered by that kind of detail. Because Charles Xavier handicapped changed nobody's opinion but Charles Xavier’s. Perniciously, his smile went backward, his mischievous gaze faded away and his words of hope got replaced by the lamest leitmotiv there is: “ _As you want_.” Hank could still remember a few years back when Charles seemed to have hit rock bottom: he did not show any motivation for _anything_ , he stopped saying ‘ _I’_ anymore and wasn’t making any decisions. Nothing seemed to please him and life in general looked like a chore. Eating at a table made him grumble because it obliged him to be carried down by a student to the first floor. Welcoming new mutants to the school caused to him present himself with this appellation that made Hank and Moira bitter: “Hello, I’m professor Xavier. Yes, you can call me Charles and yes, I can't use my legs.”

Then the Vietnam War got worse and the generals ended up knocking on the gigantic wooden door to take away the youngest mutants, the more naive ones. The first time it happened, Charles screamed, he really did. Hank had never heard anyone shout like this. He went on about everything he thought was wrong about this war, about those who were leading it, _with_ _their arses_ _stuck_ _safely_ _in their chairs_ , far from the actual fighting. The second time, Charles stayed cloistered in his bedroom. The third time, Moira left with them to go support Joseph MacTaggert in his ambitions of ending the war before the end of 1969. The project failed but when Hank read in the newspaper that ‘Moira Kinross’ became ‘Moira MacTaggert’ in February 1970, he remembers telling himself that her departure was useful to at least one person.

There were only five of them, in early 1970, when the small group suddenly split and the other mutants left to go back home. Hank can’t recall if he ever thought he should leave or if it didn’t even cross his mind. But what he will never forget is the first night when Charles and him were on the doorstep, watching the last students leave in Mona’s grey Chevrolet. That night, Hank proposed to Charles that they make burger and homemade fries, before watching _Tatort_. Charles wasn’t a big fan of television but he had considered Hank for a long time before confessing, with a smile, that the idea seemed really appealing.

The fries weren’t cooked enough and Charles had eaten them with a fork but in the end it was one of the best nights that brought the house to life. Hank was falling asleep on the couch when Charles had asked him, “Hank? Will you help me get to my bedroom, please?”

It wasn’t the first time that the scientist had carried him but it was at that moment that he realized that now that the others had left, he was the only one who was going to help out Charles now. He smiled to reassure him, lifted him up, and talked to say pretty useless stuff as they move to the room upstairs where he put the professor on his bed. Charles thanked him with his usual British politeness and Hank went to bed. The next morning, around 11 AM, he ended up going back to the bedroom to see what Charles was doing. He was sitting on the unmade bed and was reading a book, manifestly tired but happy to see Hank.

“Professor, why didn’t you call me so that I can help you get to the first-floor?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Hank. Besides, I didn’t feel like shouting through the house.”

“It’s not like you would have annoyed a lot of people… And you can call me through telepathy if you want to, I don’t mind.”

Charles had had a grin and confessed with a frail voice:

“I didn’t want to ask for your help.”

Hank understood and didn’t say another word. Every day that followed was cadenced by the mental gymnastics he forced himself to handle: _wake up, prepare the breakfast, bring it to Charles, take a shower, wait for Charles to be ready to go down, work in the lab, pass by Charles’ office to check if he needs something, etc_. It didn’t take him two weeks before the training became a routine.

It actually was working well until the winter of 1971 when the water damage caused by the wobbling gutter hit Charles’ bathroom. They had no choice but to have the professor wash in another bathroom, one that wasn’t adapted to his wheelchair. Hank had put him on a chair, as close as possible to the already filled tub and had looked at the still clothed thin legs for a long time, leaning against the earthenware before following Charles’ reassuring order to leave him. He had closed the door and hadn’t succeeded in letting the catch go. Instead, he had leaned against it with closed eyes and waited. A few noises reached the other side of the door without him trying to interpret them. He nearly left when he heard the water lapping and Charles had called:

“Hank.”

He opened the door at the exact same second. Still sitting in his chair, a thick and green towel barely covering him, Charles had worn a sad smile, his right hand gripping the edge of the cold earthenware.

“I can’t do it,” he said, trying to laugh at himself.

Hank had forced himself to laugh too, because that’s what they needed, and walked closer, keeping his eyes fixed on the professor’s to avoid his naked chest.

“You should develop your arm muscles.”

Charles chuckled again - fakely, but Hank didn’t hold it against him - and the both of them just looked at each other, an awkwardness so obvious that Hank didn’t dare to get closer to the body only covered by a towel.

“How do you want us to…”

“... Oh, sod it, and toss me into the tub!” Charles exclaimed with a voice lost between humor and despair.

Hank nodded. He took him in his arms, focusing on the tub instead of the feeling of the skin against his shirt and, in record time, put Charles into the water. He moved back immediately after and mentally congratulated himself that he didn’t put the towel inside the water and had managed to preserve the professor’s modesty.

“Well done,” Charles complimented him, exaggerating an impressed smile.

Hank nodded curtly and stepped out of the bathroom. Before closing the door behind him, he said with a neutral voice,“Call me when you’re done, so I can help you to get out.”

They did that so many times now that Hank wants to say that he is not even bothered anymore. But it’s not entirely true. The thing is that it never really bothered him. It’s helping someone in need, a human act. It’s not being his nurse, or his _skivvy_ (whatever Erik says), it’s more than that. And it’s proven by the single fact that Charles doesn’t thank him every time. He was doing it, at first, but Hank had asked him not to do it anymore. Because it’s normal.

Just that. Normal.

 

* * *

 

Charles and Erik didn’t really talk since the syringe episode but a big thing has changed: when they run into each other, Erik doesn’t feel like Charles wants to punch him in the face. Charles also accepted his silent presence when the plumber unveiled his projects on the dining table. Erik had kept his distance and didn’t say a word, fully aware that he shouldn’t get involved too much. Instead, he had watched Charles as he spoke with the plumber in that new monotonous tone. He had watched his back, the way he was standing, slightly leaned forward with his hands on the desk. Erik had also found his thoughts wandering to the memory of Charles’ pleading voice and his gaze when the needle disappeared under his skin, a week before.

It’s almost 10PM now and Charles’ bedroom door is agape. Erik is leaning against the door frame and makes his fingers roll against the wood. Charles is sitting next to the fireplace, reading his datebook.

“Can I come in?”

“If you have to,” Charles answers, closing his notebook and putting it back on the coffee table.

Erik walks closer and keeps his eyes fixed on the professor who leans back against his chair before crossing his legs.

“Are you happy with the construction works?” he asks, sitting in front of Charles.

“Yes, quite. It’s pleasant to see the house back to life, in the end,” he confesses, visibly surprised by his own words.

Erik nods. He looks at the glass filled with a brown liquid and leans to pour himself some too. Charles lets him without making any sign of disapproval. Being the one who gave him the serum the last time definitely changed something between them.

“Do you know what I’d like right now?”

"I don't really care but you're going to tell me anyway," Charles answers placidly.

“To play Chess,” Erik tells him anyway. “I don't know about you but I haven’t played since…”

“The night before Cuba,” Charles interrupts him. He stands up and goes to search for the chess set waiting between a pierced globe and a pile of books in the corner of the room.

“Yes. Do you often play?” Erik wonders, trying to ease the situation.

“It's 1973, no one wants to play Chess anymore. Young people nowadays want video games, like the _Pong_ thing…” Charles informs him while shaking his head before setting up the game between them.

“I don't understand what's fun about pressing a button to make a rectangle move…”

“We're old, Erik. Go ask Hank, he likes to play to those things,” Charles smiles for the first time tonight.

Erik doesn't want to talk about the kid, nor to think about the fact that Charles smiles when he mentions his name. So he keeps drinking and dusts the game set with Charles.

“Do you remember the Poker game we played in Philadelphia?”

“Oh my god, yes. But we can't call that Poker. That was purely cheating.”

They briefly share a discreet smirk and start to play in silence. Charles with the white and Erik with the black, just like before. And for a moment, it’s as if nothing has changed.

The story about the Poker in Philadelphia took place years ago, when they were both searching for mutants. They ended up in a crappy neighborhood. The woman they were searching for wasn’t there yet and, to kill boredom, both men accepted the invitation from a Canadian man to play cards with him and his friends. They ended up playing a game they didn’t know before. Having had enough, Erik mentally asked Charles for the both of them to leave the table but the professor thought the whole thing funny and didn’t want it to end just yet. So he juggled between the minds of the men around them, combined to his and Erik’s to give him the information he was able to obtain. Neither of them understood what they were doing but guided by the reaction of the oldest Canadian, he gave Erik orders like: _If you have two similar cards, two jacks for example, show them now. No, wait_ _for_ _the next turn! Play again. Drop your seven_. They lost a bit of money that night but they felt they did pretty good, making it a good memory they could share and talk about fondly in the following years. Tonight, in front of their favorite pastime, Erik feels a bit reassured by the fact that Charles didn't erase everything they shared from his memory.

“Good times,” Erik says while discreetly observing Charles’ reaction who is still looking at the game set.

“Yes,” he says in a neutral voice making it impossible to determine what he's feeling.

“Out of all the powers we saw, which one made you think, _I wish I had that one_?”

This time, Charles raises his head and burst out an unrestrained laughter. He passes a hand in his long hair and answers, “I don't know, that's a weird thing to ask.”

“You never think about all those things we saw? I do. Do you remember the kid who could grow an extra middle finger?”

“I particularly recall the rude comment you told her,” Charles grins, raising his eyebrows.

“It would have been a shame not to say anything. And the guy from India who was able to turn any tongue blue? We saw some pretty useless powers,” Erik comments and moves his bishop. He continues as Charles still hasn't answered him. “So, what is the power you’d have like to have?”

“I told you I don’t know…” replies the professor, a bit irritated.

“You’re no fun. Alright, I’ll answer my own question then. The power I’d have like to have, is yours.”

This time, Charles raises his eyes and looks at him in the eyes. He doesn’t smile, his face void of any emotion. Erik stays silent and focuses on the game as Charles seems stuck. There are a few seconds where there’s only the sound of knocking of the wooden piece hitting the board before Charles responds with irony:

“It’d have been absolutely marvellous if you had had my telepathy. Wait, _marvellous,_ I said? Ah, no, I’d rather say _apocalyptic_ ,” he corrects himself with a grin.

“Well if you had _my_ powers, I’m sure you wouldn’t know what to do with them. Maybe you’d have taken the opportunity to build a shelter for abandoned kittens.”

“Which is always better than to take the opportunity to carry on a reign of intimidation and chaos.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic…” Erik sighs, losing a bit of his patience.

“Oh I’m not, I’m just realistic, Erik. You _are_ a mad man, that’s all.” 

“I have a _vision_. Unlike some people, I don’t live like someone who expects everything to be done for him, waiting to find a pathetic goal to guide his life,” he corrects, leaning forward.

Charles breathes in by his nose, so strongly that his nostrils blow up and suddenly his body jumps forward. He knocks over the game set that pushes into his ribs and hits Erik’s face with his fist. Charles falls on him and clings to his sweater; disoriented, he drags him down and Erik whines, rubbing his sore jaw. Charles climbs onto his chest just as Erik is about to hit him back and the professor’s hand press his throat. Erik’s eyes open wide and his hands try to push away the face above him, covered by scruffy hair. Erik tries to talk but his Adam’s apple fights against Charles’ thumb and the pain is unbearable.  

 _‘Charles, stop’_ , he mentally screams, trying everything he can to get through his friend. But Charles doesn’t even seem to care as his knuckles turn white around his throat and this time, Erik stretches out his fingers. He calls the first object in metal he feels - a small cylindrical statue - and violently smashes it on Charles’ head, who collapses under the pain. He slides away from the German’s body, groaning lowly, and leans his forehead on the ground, his hands clutching his neck while grumbling his suffering. Erik straightens up and rubs at his chest, coughing, to try to bring back some air to his lungs. He presses his palms on his eyes and turns around to see Charles, hunched up on the carpet covered with dust.

Erik would like to do something but aside from smashing the statue against Charles’ body again and again until he doesn’t recognize it anymore, he doesn’t know what else to do. So he gets up and staggers to the door before he slams it behind him.

 

* * *

 

Hank nods in rhythm to the music he’s listening to through his headphones. He turns the page of his comic-book and sighs when he hits the last panel. He now must wait a month to know what happens next. He straightens up on his bed, takes off his headphones ready to turn off the lights to sleep when he hears timid knocks on the door. He frowns and goes to see what’s going on.

“Professor?”

“Did I wake you up?” Charles asks, one eye closed, with a forced smile that deforms his white face. His left hand clutched the back of his skull.

“No, come on in,” he invites him by moving backward before realizing that his room is a mess.

He hastily pushes away the clothes on the floor with his feet  but Charles doesn’t seem to care as he moves forward and that makes Hank forget the rest; the professor’s fingers are covered with blood.

“What happened? Did you fall?”

He guides him by holding his elbow as Charles slowly sat down on the bed (his armchair is already used by his books). Charles settles in place and slowly takes off his hand of his wound, wincing. Hank leans to check out the cut.

“Yes… I tripped over in the stairs. I’m sorry to bother you but I already disinfected the wound and it just keeps bleeding. Can you take a look for me please? I think it might be deeper than I have anticipated.”

“Sure.”

Hank sits behind him and that makes Charles gently bounce on the mattress. He raises the long locks as slowly as possible to try to see the wound. Charles whines.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Hank repeats everytime he moves aside some of the hair that are obstructing his sight. “It looks superficial. I can take you to the hospital if you want, but I don’t think that…”

“No, no, that’s what I thought but I wasn’t able to see it for myself, even with a mirror,” Charles reassures him. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Don’t worry,” he answers, nodding.

Charles looks at him for a few seconds and wonders, his voice lower:

“Can I ask you another favor?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“... Will you cut my hair?”

Hank watches the serious eyes in front of him and is not able to hold back the burst of laughter.

“No! No it’ll look ridiculous, I’m not a hair dresser. I was thinking about going to New Rochelle tomorrow, I could drop you off at the…”

“Take the clippers and cut, Hank. It’s only hair, it’ll grow again eventually. I can’t stand them anymore, they’re too long.”

It’s not even worth considering, it’s going to be rough, but Charles slightly leans forward and looks at him under his long eyelashes, daring half of a smile that Hank never saw before. It’s not a smile that he really likes as he knows it’s the kind that won’t allow anyone to ever say _no_ to.

“... Alright, but I’m using a hair guide comb. You won’t be bald by my doing.”

“I’d like to avoid that indeed.”

Hank goes to search for the clippers and takes off the blue hair on it when he found it. Sometimes, when he transforms into Beast, the locks above his eyes are too long so he cut them. Fortunately, his fur doesn’t grow too quickly. He puts a guide comb on it and picks up a towel. He sits back on the bed and Charles takes his place on the floor, between his legs, presenting him his back. He takes the towel, puts it on his own shoulders and smiles, raising his head to Hank.

“I trust you.”

“I’m not sure if that is supposed to comfort me,” Hank wails before turning the clippers on.

He breathes in and passes it on the left side of the head in front of him, far from the wound. Dark brown locks begin to fall on the towel and the professor’s sweater but he doesn’t say a thing. He catches one between his fingers and distractedly plays with it. Hank waits to be sure that no scream of realization will pierce his ears before carrying on.

It’s a bit strange to do this on someone else but in the end, it’s quite pleasant. He’s very careful when he’s working around the cut and puts his hand above it when he passes the clippers on the top of his skull, to be sure hair won’t touch the wound. He cuts enough locks to have a better view on it and realizes it’s even smaller than he thought. He reassures Charles again and then finishes after ten minutes.

“There you go… Well, I think,” he says, far from sure.

Charles passes a hand in his now short hair and turns around to face him, kneeling between his legs.

“So?”

Hank smiles.

“That does suit you.”

And it’s a real euphemism because Charles is beautiful. It’s strange for him to notice it - and impossible to say out loud - but with his subtle beard and his short hair as he had them a few years back, the professor seems younger, less unapproachable. Hank always suspected the long hair were his way to hide his face from the rest of the world, but he’s not a shrink and doesn’t want to try to be one.

Charles smiles, enough to reveal his teeth and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and puts his hands on Hank’s knees.

“I knew you could do it.”

He gets up and goes to the bathroom, probably to check himself in the mirror as he goes into raptures, complimenting the scientist’s hidden talents again and again. Hank, himself, still hasn’t moved from the bed.

“It’s perfect, Hank. Thank you very much.”

He’s in front of him now and seeing Charles standing in the light doesn’t help Hank to answer. Charles gathers the towel and shakes it above the bin before cleaning everything else. He seems more relaxed and definitely looks radiant.

“What would I do without you?” he asks, getting closer to Hank who, this time, manages to stretch out his lips a bit.

Charles wishes him good night before leaving the room as discreetly as he entered it. Hank stays on his bed and looks at the room that doesn’t bear any mark of this first ever event, anymore. Then his eyes stop on his knees that Charles touched and his heart skips a beat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the last kudos! Kudos and comments make me ha-ha-ha-happy ♥  
> Warning for this chapter: smut and jealousy. Combined.

With a toothpick swinging around his  mouth , Erik adds the word  _ Cigarettes  _ on the list he started an hour ago. It’s a whim that got into him since he got out of prison; he writes everything that’s not inaccessible anymore,  things he is planning to have again and not take for granted . He hasn’t  asked Charles if he can take the car to go to New Rochelle yet, but something makes him think he won’t say no. As the last time they talked, they almost killed each other, maybe Charles will be seduced by the idea that Erik  will be out of his sight  for the rest of the day.

 

It will help the both of them if they do not see each other for now, at least for a few hours. For Erik, Charles has changed and he’s practically sure that for Charles, it’s the other way around. In fact, it’s much more than that: the _world_ has changed. When Erik got arrested, the US were still aiming for Russia to send their missiles but Nixon decided to wreak havoc in Asia instead. Back then, Marylin Monroe was still alive and freaking _hairdressers_ too. Erik doesn’t get what’s so fashionable about not shaving at all, nor the loose clothes or lazy music. People are talking about India as if it’s the American West, with less gold but more opium. _It’s a human thing_ , thinks Erik.

 

He hears steps getting closer to the living room and raises his head. Hank is putting a few books away so it’s Charles who’s entering the room. Erik is ready to ask him about taking the car (before Hank speaks, to be sure to not waste any time) but Charles pushes the door and reveals himself. Erik heavily swallows to try to tamp down inside of him memories from a happier time which are settling, leaving him momentarily stunned.

 

Charles has _cut his hair_. 

 

He glances at him for  a split  second and  walks over to Hank to thank him for God knows what, Erik doesn’t listen to them anyway. He just  stares mesmerized at  the face that looks younger now that he got all  of those excess hair off , so similar to the  haircut  he knew years before and the discreet beard on his cheeks and chin which is  moving smoothly with his face at every cheerful word he  say . Erik breathes in and puts his notebook in his inner pocket. He gets up and  walks to them , his eyes sliding  over Charles’ silhouette which is now so much more sensual and waits for the end of their discussion.

 

“Alright, Hank, that’d be great.”

 

“Sure, professor. Do you want me check your wound by the way?”

 

Erik frowns and sees Charles’ mouth  tensing before he agrees. He presents his back to Hank whose hands  found their way to his head, gently parting the hair around the cut . Facing Erik, Charles is looking at him straight in the eye.

 

“Is it painful, if I do this?”  he hears Hank ask. 

 

“No,” Charles answers without  any expression  on his face.

 

_ The worst insult there is _ , Erik thinks  as Charles continues to hold his gaze, eyes bland when they used to look at Erik with so much more .

 

“It doesn’t seem infected. Tell me if you feel like it’s burning or bothering you.”

 

“Don’t worry, Hank,” Charles comforts him, his gaze still fixed on Erik who wants to slap him.

 

Everything is a bit  _ too much _ right now. Because Charles finally looks like the real Charles, the one he wanted to shake, literally, so many times, confused to find him adorable and insufferable at the same time. Charles is a rich brat, moreover British, one of those men with one of those perfect  lives . The only person that Erik not only envied but also wanted to wrap in his arms  so tightly so that nothing and no one could ever soil him. Because Erik doesn’t care about anyone else’s happiness, already too tired to find his, but Charles has nothing to do with the rest of the  world . To this man and this man only, Erik could have  dedicated his entire life  to be sure to see him smile today, tomorrow and forever.

 

Erik wonders if one day, those feelings will come back. 

 

Charles  takes  a step closer and his cologne invades Erik’s unattainable universe like an old melody you can never get rid of and  _ Yes, the feelings are back _ .

 

“I need the car,” he practically growls. 

 

“Alright, when would you need it?” Charles asks with his nose raised in an aristocratic way.

 

“Today.”

 

“Oh, professor, I’m sorry but I’d like to pick up the books I ordered, as I told you the last time and I’d need the car,”  interrupts Hank.

 

Erik rolls his eyes and moves backward.

 

“You could go together,” Charles proposes.

 

“No,” Erik answers  without hesitating. “I’ll go tomorrow. Take the car, Beast.” 

 

He  ignores the  reproachful gazes that he knows both men are giving him  and sits again on the couch. He catches the last issue of _ Life _ and puts it on his lap to read. Charles leaves the room, asking himself out loud where he put the keys while Hank waits, standing in the center of the room  uselessly .

 

“What happened?” Erik asks without even looking at him.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“ To his  head .”

 

“Oh. He fell yesterday evening.”

 

Erik nods. “So he came to see you so you could nurse him.”

 

“Well… not really, the cut wasn’t that deep.”

 

“And you cut his hair.”

 

This time, it makes the Beast shut his mouth. When Erik lifts up his eyes to look at him, Hank lowers his. He’s looking at his feet now and flattens a fold on the rug with his shoe. 

 

“What did you feel, when you touched  him ?”

 

There,  _ that’s _ what’s pushing the Beast to the edge as his skin  starts to show the faintest trace of blue .

 

“They were in my jacket, of course!” Charles says, delightedly  unaware of the exchange , coming back to the room, presenting the keys in his hand. “Could you buy some bread too, please?”

 

Hank swallows hard and his skin turns pink just before Charles  senses that something  is  wrong. Hank takes the keys, mumbles a  _ Thank you _ , and literally runs away from the library. 

 

Hidden behind the magazine he’s not even reading, Erik smiles.

 

* * *

 

  
  


“Next.”

 

Hank sighs and moves forward  with a step. With the tall woman  leaving the counter, there are only four  people  in front of him before he can pick up his packages. It's quite warm in the post office even if it's raining outside. Hank takes off his jacket before holding it on his forearm. There's a lot of noises too. The public telephones are only separated by blurred glass boards, for intimacy, but that  only leaves the room with a perpetual brouhaha. Hank’s senses are more developed than the average but his hearing, although  sensitive , has never really bothered him. He's able to not think about the noises around him and, staring into blank space, he thinks about the books  he’ll finally be getting . He ordered two of them by mail order selling: the report of Francis Crick’s latest discoveries (who's now going farther into his work as  it started to greatly impact the study of  _ neuroscience _ , a word Hank doesn't understand yet but  one he can't wait to know more about) and Maurice Wilkins’ reports. He was so happy when he discovered that he could buy James Watson’s work about the DNA structure, but he has been  put off by the things he heard at his Science and Biology club. Watson may be a great scientist but he  did not shy away from giving  out racists remarks,  as proven  when he affirmed Black people were inferior to the White race. This  happened  during several conventions  in  which people from Hank’s Club  attended . Hank is particularly sensible to rejection due to the difference. And it's not only because he's a mutant. Even if he was born human, he knows he'd have  fought for equality among people. 

 

But the book that Hank can't wait to read is Anne Sayre’s,  _ Rosalind Franklin and DNA _ , a book that  recounts the life of  the British woman, with all her importance, in the  field of  biology. The women  in Hank’s club often talk about her, making her a feminist icon, defending her work and honor besmirched by  some male scientists who are trying to  belittle the importance of her discoveries. Hank feels a bit stupid because if Lucy, Christina, and Jamie hadn't  talked about her, he could have spent a lifetime without knowing how much Rosalind Franklin changed the face of the world. Of the  _ biology _ world, at least. 

 

“Next.”

 

He moves forward again and he's surprised to be already in front of the counter. He smiles  at the lady sitting in front of him and gives her the paper with the number of his order. She blows the smoke of her cigarettes on her side and slides backward to ask to her colleague to go fetch package number B124 and E15. When  they finally hand him his packages , he thanks them, wishes them a good day and hides his impatient smile, rushing to the closest bench. He opens the package coming from Bucknell academy and smiles when he reads Warren’s letter. 

 

_ Dear Hank, _

 

_ I hope you're doing fine. How is your research on sedimentation in sucrose going? You'll find in the package the Anne Sayre book you wanted. You're a lucky pal, I had to bribe the librarian and my professor, Mr. Salvadore, to be able to send it to you. Mr. Salvadore is really impressed that someone out of the course knows about Franklin. I told him about our numerous exchanges on the separation of proteins by electrophoresis and I showed him your formulas. He’d like to meet you. You should come to study at Bucknel! You’d love it,  _ _ I’m sure _ _. We’re doing some amazing research and the laboratories are huge! I know you told me money isn’t an issue, but if it is and you’re too proud to tell me, don’t worry, I can try to find  _ _ out  _ _ more about the scholarship.  _ _   
_ _ I hope to get news from you soon. Take good care of  _ _ yourself _ _.  _

 

Hank puts the letter back in the book he’s flipping through and gets up to leave the post office. He goes shopping light-heartedly and head full of formulas. Warren always insists that Hank join him but it’s not something he’ll do. He doesn’t feel like he could abandon Charles. Also, he likes his life as it is right now. 

 

Just him and Charles.

 

* * *

 

 

Sky is  overcast  and it’s cold outside. Erik went jogging and it hasn’t been pleasurable. He slept a bit after the shower he took. This day is just weird. It’s probably because of the  gloomy skies and the fact that they have to turn on the lights even if it’s mid-day. Erik knows Charles came before him if a lamp is on, in a room where he hasn’t been. This is what they became to each other, some kind of ghosts. 

 

He gets out of his bedroom and gets ready to go watch the television in the living-room when he passes by Charles who’s leaving it. Erik smiles and Charles lowers his head. Their shoulders almost touch and Erik automatically turns around to keep  looking at  Charles  who is about  to climb the stairs.

 

“It really doesn’t hurt?” he can’t help but ask when he sees the scar on the skull. 

 

Charles stops but doesn’t turn around.

 

“No. Don’t worry.”

 

It’s not very pleasant to speak to a  person’s back. Erik moves closer and raises a hand to the brown hair.

 

“It doesn’t look deep.”

 

“It’s not, Hank already checked last night.”

 

_ Hank _ , it’s not a name, it’s a fucking echo here. Erik’s hand  moves closer again and the tip of his fingers lay down a few millimeters above the wound.  He feels the whole  of Charles’ body getting tense  under his touch .

 

“You cut your hair.”

 

It’s not a question, it’s obvious but Erik  says it anyway  because it’s beautiful. His hand slides more and more,  fingers a tender pressure against the scalp without touching the scar with his palm. Charles’ skin is warm, his hair. There’s something that Erik is feeling that resembles the word  _ Home _ . So he comes nearer and he wraps his arms around the body he’s  longing to feel . Charles jumps  in surprise and painfully digs his nails into the German’s forearms. 

 

“Erik…” he  says warningly .

 

It means  _ stop _ , Erik understands but he’s afraid to leave him so he grips him even harder. He  moves his face to the brown hair and breathes in the smell he realizes at an instant that he  has never forgotten . He whispers against Charles’ neck.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Charles trembles, his hands trying to  reject him. He even dares a step forward to free himself from the embrace and Erik follows the movement to be sure their bodies stay  united , to keep a place they should have never lost.

 

“I’m sorry,”  he mutters  again and again, because it’s true. 

 

_ I didn’t want to hurt you, Charles. You know how confused I am  _ _ about desire and rejection _ _. You know how hard it is for me to see the difference between those things. _

 

He internally murmurs it because he knows Charles can hear him and that’s all that matters. Charles moves again and this time Erik lets him because his movements don’t say _escape_ anymore. He tears himself off Erik and turns around to face him. Erik wraps his arms around the body he’s  towering over. He moves his face closer, leans his forehead against his, their cheeks brushing slightly. He tries to get closer to his lips but Charles turns his head away, pursing his. His hands are back on Erik’s forearms, screaming hesitation, between _Yes_ and _No_. Erik can respect  this, because he understands it. So he doesn’t push, and deeply breathes against Charles’ face with closed eyes.

 

_ I’m waiting for you. _

 

But he won’t withdraw.

  
And Charles finally tightens his left hand on Erik’s tense muscle and his mouth opens. He wants to say something, maybe scream, but  nothing  comes out of it. So Erik leans forward and  seals the open mouth  with his , invading it with his tongue. There’s not a single second where Charles hesitates and his tongue too, obscene and warm, kisses him, and there, they meet again.

 

_ I’ve always waited for you _ .

 

This time, Charles holds him too. It’s painful for both of their neck to be  leaning against  each other that way.  Then  Erik stops the kiss  abruptly . He presses his hands under Charles’ bottom to lift him up. 

 

_ Not here _ .

 

Charles understands as he is putting his legs around Erik’s hips, who’s growling when he feels his erection pressed between their bodies. He furtively kisses his mouth again and looks behind Charles’ shoulder then he’s climbing up the stairs . There’s not a single noise in the house, only his steps and Charles’ breaths as he carry him up the steps. The catch turns automatically when they’re getting closer to the door. Erik isn’t even aware of all those things he’s moving around him, the same way he doesn’t hear the door slamming behind them. He puts Charles on the bed without any patience or gentleness and straddles his body to take his clothes off. Erik lets Charles kiss him as he worked on his buttons then pushes him away when he takes off his sweater that he almost rips off. He takes off his shirt with a contagious impatience and swoops down on the naked chest, covering it with kisses and careless bites he tries to control. But Charles moans and his voice drove Erik crazy many times before so he knows he can’t resist it. 

 

He lets Charles take care of his own clothes and removes the professor’s belt with his powers, before pulling his trousers down and sliding his hand in his briefs. Charles arches his back, panting and that makes Erik smile. He’s stroking his cock a few seconds before going back, to take the last clothes off their bodies. Charles, naked, crawls on the bed and stretches out on the  middle  of it. Erik slowly shakes his head, mesmerized, because Charles finally smiles and he  _ knows _ how to play with the German’s nerves; Erik hates to see Charles drawing away from him, it’s simply something that must not happen. 

 

So he comes back to him with even more desire, crushes their bodies together and glides his hands up to his wrists. He keeps his eyes closed this time when they kiss and forces Charles to put his hands on the headboard. Once the professors’ fingers are reeled around the thin metal bar, Erik  pushes  open his thighs until Charles whines. Erik won’t wait. He sucks two of his fingers and presses them against Charles’ hole, but Charles automatically closes his legs.

 

“No, wait…”

 

Erik nearly faints. Charles must feel it because he smiles.

 

“We need something… Vaseline, please.”

 

“You’re so bourgeois,” Erik curses, losing his patience. He jumps off the bed. “Do you have some?”

 

“I don’t know. Maybe Hank left it in the medical kit.”

 

Erik decides to ignore a part of that sentence and rummage through the black case in which he finds the container he takes back with him to the bed. Charles shivers when he sees Erik digging two of his fingers into the jar to get an excessive amount of lube, settling down in front of Charles’ legs that he's keeping spread apart with his free hand. He kisses the thigh on his left and watches as his fingers caress the tight hole. Charles’ legs wriggle a bit and Erik growls before biting the tender flesh. 

 

“Don’t be so shy. Open your legs for me, like you used to.”

 

Charles turns his  face  on his right to try to hide it in the pillow while he does as he's told and that make Erik  pant . 

 

“It's because it's been a while, right? It's been a while since you opened your legs like this…”

 

Erik's fingers are against his hole now. They're not even pressing in, just caressing with teasing slowness and ghosts pushing in that are enough to make Charles whine. His body seems to be as attracted as it is afraid of Erik who can't look away from Charles’ expression; eyes closed and mouth half-opened. He never saw him like this. So unsure.

 

“Tell me no one else  has touched you,” Erik demands more than he orders, but Charles does nothing but close his lips and Erik can't stand that pout. He heavily  covers the smaller body with his own to try to  catch Charles’ gaze. “No one touched you, no one  _ fucked _ you. Say it, Charles.”

 

His digits are pushing painfully slow now, but Erik can't,  _ won’t _ , finger him if Charles doesn't answer. Because it has to be true, he must always be his, even when they are nothing to each other. Charles still doesn't say a word and Erik  grips on his jaw to force his face to look at him. He kisses and bites, without noticing the difference, the cheeks, lips and chin while he begs, voice not much stronger than a breath:

 

“Please, Charles, say it please,  _ please… _ ” 

 

Charles breathes in deeply and finally looks at him. His arms are still resting on the bed, he’s not moving them, by pride or punishment toward his ex. It's bewitching, the way Charles’ face holds diamonds and mysteries, it's something that Erik could never forget, never  ceases to crave for. They look at each other,  drowning in each other’s eyes and silence until the sound of Charles’ voice breaks it when he confesses:

 

“I couldn't.”

 

Erik looks at him and doesn't  breathe . His finger is pushing in, in a  slow and possessive gesture that makes Charles nearly  cry while he throws his head back. Erik doesn't even know what that means, if Charles didn't want to end up with another guy or if he physically couldn't when he was still in his wheelchair. At least, Erik knows that not a single finger touched Charles, not the smallest breath, not the slightest proof of love. He moves his digit sharply, exploring the tight heat with a fragile tenderness he knows. Charles’ moans are mixing with the sound his finger  is making as it begins  entering and quitting his lubed hole. Erik growls and nearly comes when he pushes in a second finger. He won't last long and doesn't want to take his time. He’s preparing Charles with as much patience as he can but when the pleading voice  has become too much of a tease, he spreads his fingers in the tight entrance and slowly takes them out. Charles whines  in  both pain and pleasure; it's enough for Erik to settle between the opened legs. He caresses himself  with a few strokes, looking at the hole he’s keeping a bit open with his thumb which is pressing just  at the reddened entrance. 

 

Slowly, painfully, he finally slips into Charles, who’s nodding instinctively. It’s almost bestial, Erik’s need to be inside him, entirely, utterly. He keeps his eyes closed and  tries to steady and calm himself amidst  the avowed groans Charles is making under him, when he goes too deep, too quick. But they both want it so much,  _ need it _ , that it’s simply not the kind of thing they can control. When Erik is buried deep, balls flush against Charles’ arse, he allows himself his first husky breath and leans to the neck he  then pinches between his teeth. Because Charles is his,  _ only his _ , and there’s no one here  besides them. As it should be, forever and always.

 

They find a fast pace after a few minutes and Erik slides his hand along Charles’ back to force him to arch it, to ease his thrust. On the tip of his forefinger, he feels the  marred skin.  _ The scar _ . Erik pushes into Charles’ body, when  realization hits him , and it’s simply harrowing. He should take his hand off it,  caress Charles’ bare chest instead , but it’s breathtaking to feel, in such a brutal and carnal way, his screw-up that will mark Charles’ body until the end of time -  however numerous there’ll be.  And there will be many, for sure, for he knew he that he will never stop hurting Charles whether he likes it or not.  They kiss and reject each other without any softness when one of them needs to  breathe and it’s between a struggle and love, which  aptly sums up  the times they’ve shared together . 

 

Sometimes, when Charles has his eyes closed and on his face, the expression of pure ecstasy, Erik feels like he’s escaping from him, thinking his lover might be dreaming up about someone else between his thighs. So he fucks him with more eagerness or grips his face between his fingers to force him to look at him. And when Charles does, Erik feels so meager, so vulnerables that he wants to  ask for forgiveness, again and again, for everything. 

 

“Erik… please…”, Charles asks and Erik raises his head.

 

Charles’ hands are surrounded  by the metal bars of the headboard. Erik gestures vaguely to move them aside and sees the wrists achingly red.

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

 

“It’s okay,” Charles reassures him and it makes him laugh. A real chuckle, the kind that makes him giggle out loud. Erik is persuaded Charles is as beautiful when he laughs as when he comes. So he sticks their  foreheads together and laughs too, because the headboard is just a mess now and it’s an improbable situation. He’s holding himself up by his forearms to not crush Charles. He kisses him, takes his time and slows down his thrusts, to get deeper. He doesn’t precisely know why he thinks about it now, but he remembers the time Charles told him he didn’t only feel anger and pain in Erik, but good too. Erik today wonders if he feels this desire he has in him, all his desire for Charles, whose breathing is getting abyssal. Erik lets him touch himself. Their  foreheads still pressed together,  eyes looking at each other. Charles puts his hand on Erik’s right cheek and Erik furtively turns his head to kiss his fingers. The way Charles can’t keep his eyes fully open, the sound of his hoarse voice and how tight he’s getting around his cock, Erik knows this picture. He slams into him once,  _ slowly _ . Twice,  _ deeper _ . Three,  _ harder _ . Charles cries out loud, eyes fixed on his own hand, coming in  a long white spurt. Erik growls a deep-rooted moan and kisses Charles’ forehead, his lips crushed against the sweat-covered skin and comes, emptying himself deep into the shivering body. 

 

They stay in each other's arms until their breathing  evens out . Erik slides on one side to stop crushing Charles who opens his eyes to observe the room.

 

“Erik,” he calls and Erik looks at it too.

 

All around the bed, all the metal objects have been moved out of place without them being aware of it. It’s a mess now and it makes them look at each other before bursting out laughing, and yes, maybe the sound is so pure that it drowns out everything that made them part ways before. Charles turns around on his belly, holds his head in his right hand and finally, _finally_ he’s looking at Erik like before, with this spark in  his eyes that seems to be the only light that could chase away Erik’s inner darkness. He leans gently and smoochs Erik who strokes his face. 

 

_ You’re back. _

 

* * *

 

 

“Professor!”

 

Hank closes the front door behind him and directly goes to the kitchen, arms full of supplies. Charles only asked for bread, but Hank read the first three chapters of Sayre’s book in front of the supermarket vegetables’ shelf, and it’s so brilliant it made him want to have a royal feast, because intelligent and bright things always make him so happy. And right now, he’s  _ ecstatic _ .  He even bought champagne and duck, which isn’t something they’re used to  eating here and it’s even better. He pushes the double door, puts his bags on the table and gets ready to call the professor again when he  sees him, standing in his pajamas, pouring himself a glass of water. He’s wearing his grey t-shirt and dark green pants, even  though it’s 6  o’clock in the evening , but his small eyes are the proof he woke up from a nap not  too long ago. There’s a tender smile on his lips and it lights up his face with a radiant aura.

 

“Did you receive the book you ordered?” Charles asks, bringing the glass to his lips and Hank wonders how he can both smile and drink without spilling water on  himself . 

 

“Yes! They seem perfect, I can’t wait to read them.”

 

“We can eat sandwich tonight, so you could read them right after,” Charles proposes, taking  his place on a chair, before holding his face on one of his closed fist.

 

“No, no. I bought duck and runner beans. And for dessert, peach Melba,” Hank  says , rather proud.

 

Charles has a lovely smile and Hank can only  smile back  when the professor is delighted like this. He almost wants to ask him what got him so happy, but he still seems sleepy and it’s probably because he must  realize the renovation works please him more than he thought it  would . The double door is suddenly pushed and Hank pulls a face when the German arrives. He hopes it won’t make Charles withdraw into himself, but both men just look at each other without seeming to go for their throat. What an unexpected progress. 

 

“Is there a party I’m not invited to?” Erik asks, going through the fridge to pick up a beer. 

 

“We’re talking about tonight’s dinner. Hank’s spoiling us,” Charles answers, looking at Erik,  _ smiling _ .

 

Hank frowns. 

 

“Alright,” Erik says indifferently. He’s leaning against the counter behind Charles. He opens the bottle cap with his power and brings the bottle to his lips, his eyes fixed on Hank who doesn’t  quite understand why Erik’s so suddenly interested in him. But Hank doesn’t mind and ignores him, putting the things he bought in the  kitchen cabinets . When Erik  moves to leave the kitchen, he gets so close to Hank that he has to move aside to avoid the German’s shoulder. Charles doesn’t even notice, as he’s emptying the bags and Hank prefers that. 

 

They both spend an hour and a half cooking, with the radio turned on, playing contemporary music Charles doesn’t criticize this time. They talk about Sayre’s book and dinner, and oddly,  they find  cooking poultry is harder to understand than how an electron works. 

 

It’s Charles’ idea to set the table in the big dining-room, with the silverware stamped with the professor’s initials (a gift from one of his  aunts , when he was eight years old). And even if Erik eats with them, tonight, they surprisingly do have fun. Charles seems to have  woken  up from an extended sleep as his energy is similar to the one he had before Cuba. He talks, he’s interested in what’s going on around him,  and laughs. And Hank loves that. He could listen to him for hours and that’s what they used to do before, when Charles still had some humor left despite the wheelchair. So he watches him, hiding his smile behind the hand holding his head and drinks in his words. He’s caught by surprise when Charles gives out a first moan, leaning forward to rub his thighs. 

 

“Are you okay?” Erik asks and Hank realizes he should have ask before him.

 

“It’s been a while since I had my last treatment,” he explains, screwing up his eyes.

 

“Let’s go up, I’ll do it then you could sleep right after,” Hank proposes, getting up.

 

“No, I can do it,” Erik decrees with a voice that seems…  _ normal ? _

 

Hank opens his eyes wide, not certain he likes this weird joke, and Erik continues:

 

“If it’s okay with you, Charles?”

 

The professor looks at him and nods once.

 

“Very well, that way you can go read your books, Hank,” Charles says, delighted, getting up with rusty  movements .

 

Hank gets closer to help him but Erik puts his napkin on the table and goes around it, before catching the professor’s forearm.

 

“I can take it from here,” he says, casting an unblinking eye on Hank.

 

He moves back to let them pass and watches them walk until they leave the dining room.  Hank stood in the deserted room long after Charles and Erik are gone, wondering what just happened. He looks at the table and, without a word, piles the empty plates up, then the cutlery, before bringing everything back to the kitchen. He doesn’t wash the dishes  and directly goes to his bedroom to put on his pajamas and lay down in his bed. 

  
Lost in Sayre’s third chapter, eyes stucked in the thin space between two lines, Hank doesn’t make progress in his reading. Because something went wrong tonight and he’s afraid to understand what has changed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Thank youuu for the kudos and bookmarks, and an extra thanks to Mordantata for her support.  
> Kudos are so nice to get but comments are truly motivating, so don't hesitate in dropping a review if you like this story so far, you couldn't make me happier!  
> Once again, I want to thank Mugen for her amazing job as a beta - you're an angel, I couldn't publish this story without you dear!
> 
> WARNING: this chapter contains mildly dubious consent!

Charles is happy. One can see it, hear it, feel it. He smiles and breathes like a man who hasn’t been through hell and it even seems contagious. Hank suspects it’s Charles’ good mood that infected the workers who are now bringing in their record-player to listen to bossa nova while they work. When him and Charles go to check how the renovation works are going, Charles is delighted about absolutely everything, he slightly dances and he asks the men if the singer they’re listening to is Gilberto, while it’s Hank who has to sign the paper given by the prime contractor.

 

Change is apparent in Erik too, surprisingly. He seems to be less troublesome in the past few days, mostly staying out of their way and holding back biting remarks Hank has come to expect from him. He’s now discreet, talks to Charles calmly and helps with the chores around the house (which means he clears his empty plate and throws away his beer bottle).

 

But if Charles’ happiness is so catching, why does Hank feel like he has never felt so miserable? Not that seeing the professor lighten up doesn't please Hank - it is a good change and welcome - but somehow, the change is out of place, like one's left shoe on the right foot. It helps but it doesn't fit. When Charles drinks now, it’s only during dinner and he doesn’t drink more than two to three glasses of wine. During the three years they lived with just each other, Charles has never been this serene. Hank’s missing something, obviously, but _what_ ? Is it only because the house can now be called a home, that explains why, when the professor gets up from his bed in the morning he seems to be, for the first time in three long years, _alive_?

 

Charles is sitting in front of him right now, in his office wherein the windows are opened to let the warm air from outside to get in, and he’s humming along to the Patsy Cline song which is resonating from the garden. Hank has been observing him since a few minutes ago and neither of them seems to notice. Then, the answer to all of this problems seems evident.

 

“Warren sent me a letter proposing that I join the genetic course in Bucknell. Warren Worthington,” Hank specifies as if it’s important, but it doesn’t in comparison to the news he just drop off.

 

Charles puts his pen on the file he was reading and his mouth opens wide before morphing into an amazed smile. He doesn’t speak for a few seconds and Hank doesn’t know if it’s better that way. But Charles finally gets up and says, “That’s fantastic! You’ve been telling me about this for years! They have a free spot then?”

 

Hank smiles but not because he’s happy. It’s because he has to prevent his mouth from confessing that Bucknell - the university he dreams of getting into every night - has plenty of space for him. It’s a lie that has been brewing for two years and a half, that started when Warren came to New Rochelle to visit his family and that Hank and him met for a coffee. Warren talked about the university with his voice filled with emotion and Hank truly was jealous of him. Not enough to let professeur Xavier live alone, though. But enough to think about it everyday.

 

“You’re going, then?”, Charles asks, sitting on his desk in front of Hank.

 

“What about you?” he wonders aloud, because that’s the main subject.

 

“What about _me_?”

 

Charles doesn’t seem to understand. Why is it so painful to notice?

 

“If I leave, who will take care of you?”

 

Charles opens his mouth again, smiles and closes it, lowering down his face. He has a secret. It’s not only the house or his back that doesn’t seem to hurt him since a few days ago, it’s something that he’s _hiding_ from Hank. And after being the professor’s only confidant for years, it’s the worst feeling there is.  

 

“You shouldn’t make life decisions in relation to me, Hank.”

 

He wants to ask _Why?_ but it doesn’t seem the right thing to do, so he waits.

 

“You would be brilliant in this training, I know it. You’re amazingly talented, Hank. Don’t ever doubt that. Everything you did for me, for the others… and for yourself. You’re special and I’m glad to think that one day, society will be able to benefit from all those wonderful things you’ll surely discover.”

 

Hank shakes his head and shrugs because those words said by this man should be enough to make him go pack right now, but it doesn’t seem to be _the_ answer. It’s maybe because he didn’t ask _the_ question, the one which is plaguing his mind since he understood there’s a secret dividing them. So, Hank doesn’t wait anymore and starts without hesitation:

 

“Professor, there’s…”

 

“ _Professor_ …”, Charles repeats, savoring the word. “It’s the first time in months that I feel I really deserve to be called that way.”

 

And the fact that Charles realizes it seems to free him from a burden, because he’s now smiling so brilliantly that the pieces of art around them seems to dull. Charles leans forward and gently puts his hand on Hank’s cheek, a kindly gesture, before he gets up and leaves the office. Hank doesn’t move. His bland eyes see, without watching, the rug, the cable of the lamp, the sofa’s feet. And something shining underneath. He gets up, leans and stretches out a hand to retrieve the object. It’s the cylindrical statue that Alex gave the professor, before he left for Vietnam. And there’s blood on it.

 

* * *

 

 

Erik leans and kisses Charles’ neck.

 

“Not here!”, he laughs, checking that they’re alone in the hallway.

 

“If someone sees us, all you have to do is erase his memory. I love when you do that, you know. It’s rather exciting…” Erik smiles, holding Charles between his arms before pushing him up to the wall to keep on his kisses on his neck.

 

“I don’t do that sort of thing anymore…” Charles whispers, keeping his eyes fixed above his lover’s shoulder to look out for any worker that might be coming.

 

“You should, for everybody’s sake.”

 

Charles shakes his head, clearly thinking Erik is a brat and that makes the German smile, happy to be able to gently annoy his lover. He nibbles his jaw and draws back.

 

“I have to go to Montreal.”

 

“Today?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Charles seems a bit troubled at the prospect of being left alone for twenty-four hours; Erik’s quite satisfied.

 

“Why do you need to go?”

 

“To transfer some money I put aside.”

 

“Erik, I can totally…”

 

“No,” he states, raising a hand, “You won’t financially support me. I have everything I need. Can I take the car? I’ll find a hotel and be back in the morning.”

 

“Yes, of course. Try to call me when you’re there,” Charles says, leading them to the first floor to give him the car keys.

 

“Are you worried?”

 

“I always am,” he sighs, rolling his eyes because it’s obvious.

 

It makes Erik smile. He takes the keys and slowly kisses Charles. First, just his lips, then his tongue inevitably slides between them, easy and natural as he marks Charle’s mouth with his presence and taste. He ends the kiss reluctantly and picks up his bag he left in the entrance, checks the map on which he drew his journey and he’s folding it when Hank comes back from his morning walk. He stops on the front steps and looks at Erik, suspicious.

 

“Are you going somewhere?”

 

“Yes, but it's none of your business, is it?”, he puts the handle of his bag on his shoulder.

 

“I just want to know if we’re getting rid of you.”

 

 _That_ is really funny. Of course, it’s not because the Beast has humor ( _he doesn’t_ ) but it’s because he’s missing the point completely. It’s crazy how Hank talks about getting rid of him when it’s only because he’s back that Charles is _Charles_ again. It’s not surprising that the professor got bitter, living with Hank all these years…

 

“Oh, no. I’ll be back tomorrow morning unfortunately for you. What are you going to do then?”

 

“I might loudly insult you in every room of the mansion,” Hank shrugs. “Or tear holes into your shirt. I haven’t really decided yet.”

 

“Concerning Charles, I mean.”

 

This time, it makes him close his trouty mouth. Erik pats his shoulder almost sympathetically.

 

“It shows, Hank.”

 

* * *

 

 

Hank is exhausted.

 

Charles. The house. Erik. Bucknell. Himself. Everything’s just tiring him out right now. He rolls around on his bed again because he can’t stop his brain from digging out every question from his memory which hasn’t been answered today: can he really leave Westchester, and consequently Charles, to go to university? Why doesn’t Charles ask him to buy alcohol anymore? And why isn’t he complaining about his back?

 

And what the hell is _showing_?

 

Since Erik said that, the sentence has been playing in a loop in Hank’s head. Erik was talking about Charles, surely, but what is supposed to be showing? That Hank’s taking care of him? That’s quite obvious as he’s been assisting him for years. He swears, that guy is just messing with his head by saying such things and acting superior and being cocky and just… generally being the usual arrogant prick that he is. But Erik said it with a smile that didn’t seem amused, one of those face straddling insults delivered with such self-control. What’s the point in trying to understand a guy like him, anyway.

 

Hank leaves his bed and aims for the living-room to watch some telly as sleep doesn’t seem to be an option at the moment. In front of the stairs, he slows down when he hears noise coming from upstairs.

 

“Hank…?”

 

He clearly hears his name this time, although the voice is fragile. He puts his hand on the guardrail and climbs up. Charles’ door is closed so he knocks.

 

“Professor? Are you alright?”

 

No answer but the sound of an object hitting the floor pushes him to enter. Sitting in an odd way on the ground, Charles’ rummaging through the chest of drawers between the two windows. He took out all that was inside a shambles that doesn’t seem like him. Hank comes closer.

 

“Professor?”

 

Charles turns his head and reveals his red eyes and his dilated pupils. He’s chewing his bottom lip which is white as he’s not restraining himself and it’s painful to see.

 

“What are you…” he starts but Charles overplays a strange smile.

 

“Ah, Hank, there you are… I can’t find the serum, do you know where you put it?”

 

“It’s in your nightstand, professor,” Hank answers quickly.

 

“Ah, yes, but no, it’s empty.”

 

Hank frowns and walks closer to the bed. He opens the first drawer, then the second. He finds tissues and books, but no serum.

 

“I’ve left five vials, where are they?”

 

He draws back and watches the professor’s legs move while almost his whole upper body wiggles and rummages around inside the big drawer. Hank understands. He sighs, puts a hand on his face and adjusts his glasses on his nose before sitting next to Charles.

 

“Professor,” he calls, daring to put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. “Did you already use all five of them?”

 

Charles contorts himself to move away from the drawer and looks at the scientist with lost eyes. It looks like he’s about to cry, muddled, with movements close to convulsion. He presses his palm against his forearm without realizing it and asks with a voice not strong enough to break through air.

 

“Will you help me? _Please_?”

 

Hank wants to scream, to stop restraining himself from transforming and to jump at the German’s throat to stick his claws into it. _Of course_ , it’s because of Erik that they end up like this, it’s only him who was able to - _God knows how_ \- convince the professor to keep on taking it. Charles and Hank had finally find a good pace for the professor, so why did Erik screw everything up? Hank told him, the night Erik saw him giving the treatment to Charles, they have to limit the doses, control it. If there’s no vials left, it means Erik administered him the serum every four or five nights and Hank doesn’t know what the consequences could be.

 

“When was the last time you had it?”

 

“My back… It hurts, Hank.” Charles explains, looking at him in the eyes and Hank can’t stand it.

 

“We don’t know what it can do to your powers, I can’t…”

 

“Please…” he repeats, getting closer awkwardly, staggering until he puts his hands on Hank’s thigh to prevent himself from falling.

 

Hank slightly moves back and watches the professor’s fingers on him. The real risk, he thinks, is that it will totally degrade the professor’s powers and that he could never use them again. But it’s not that last injection that will be the cause of it. It’s not Charles’ fault, it’s _Erik’s_. Hank knows it. Charles has addiction tendencies. He's depressed and might be susceptible to it as proven by his alcoholic mother; he’s clearly not in the right mind to make responsible choices when it comes to alcohol or medication. So it’s not fair to let the professor suffer like this. Hank shakes his head to prevent himself from thinking more about the German, as he sees the hair on his hands turning blue and gets up. He helps Charles to do the same and even if his movements are mechanical, at least, he still walks. He settles him on the bed and leans to tells him with a gentle voice:

 

“I’m going downstairs to get some and I’ll be back.”

 

Charles nods and doesn’t even go under the cover, too tired to move. Hank quickens his pace up to his lab. He shouldn’t do this, he should be able to say no, but Charles _begged_ him and he can’t let him endure this. He searches for what he needs with feverish movements and goes back to the main building, taking advantage of the distance to insult Erik out loud, with words he usually never uses. In his bed, Charles is almost sitting, back holding up thanks to his pillows. He rolled up his sleeve to gain some time and Hank tries to not think about the fact that it’s been more than a month since the last time he was the one giving Charles his treatment. When the syringe is empty, he puts it back in his box. Charles smiles and closes his eyes, and finally he doesn’t seem to suffer anymore. It doesn’t take effect immediately but he knows his ordeals will soon be over. He’s covered with sweat, Hank rarely saw him in this state. Hank stretches out a hand and puts it on the professor’s forehead to check if he has a fever and it makes him whine. Hank starts to draw back his fingers but Charles says:

 

“No, continue…”

 

Charles slides a bit more on the bed and turns his head to the scientist to let him touch him. Gradually, Hank puts his hand on the warm skin. At the tips of his fingers, he feels the brown hair he cut. He looks at Charles’ face, more relaxed now and as it’s an unusual situation, he feels obligated to talk:

 

“You don’t have a fever.”

 

“That’s good… Your hand feels good…”, Charles whispers, barely conscious.

 

Hank swallows and nods. His hand is cold as he had to cross the garden to pick up a vial in his lab, and the freshness of his skin must calm down the professor. Hanks waits a bit and starts to push his fingers on the cheeks, then the chin. He should get a washcloth covered with cold water to cool him down. Soon.

 

* * *

 

 

Erik’s leaning against the doorframe. He observes Hank’s movements, his hand on Charles’ cheek, then on his forehead again. He’s not only checking his temperature, his fingers are running over his sweaty skin for longer than necessary. Erik knows he has seen enough. He pushes the door a bit more and even if it’s not making a single noise, it still makes Hank jump with surprise. Erik goes near them and pulls a chair to sit on the other side of the bed. He looks at Charles sleeping between them and smiles despite himself to see him so peaceful, despite the war which is about to begin over him.

 

“I gave him five vials in advance and he doesn’t have a single one left. May I know why? I told you, we have to limit the doses!” Hank angrily whispers, unable to hold back his frustration any longer and getting over excited in his green armchair.

 

“He was in pain.”

 

“Of course he's in pain! A bullet torn... His spine was injured and the treatment gives him relief but surely, even _you_ know the repercussions of being dependent on drugs? You can’t give him the treatment every four days, you just can’t. He can go on for a week and a half, sometimes two weeks without it. The consequences of…”

 

“Do you know what it’s like, to look, _watch_ , while someone suffers, Hank?”, Erik interrupts him, already losing his patience.

 

Hank pulls a face, it makes his nose bounce as if he’s smelling something foul in the air, and dares to answer:

 

“Everything doesn’t have to be about what you lived through… _over there_.”

 

Erik’s not sure yet if he should call the syringe and plunge it into the scientist’s eye or if he should tear off the table’s foot to impale it on the center of his chest. But Hank doesn’t know what Erik had to lived through _over there,_ in Auschwitz, so he surprises himself when he answers without any emotion showing:

 

“I’d like that to be true, believe me.”

 

“... You should never have come here,” Hank continues, as he doesn’t know what else to say.

 

“It’s obvious that it was a mistake to think it’d be okay,” Erik spits and this time, they’re really going to _talk_.

 

Because just having dinner, all _three_ of them, even while listening to Charles talk about when the school was still running or about his childhood with Raven and their crazy and wealthy parents, is annoying enough. Erik doesn’t need to make an effort when Charles is unconscious, like right now.There’s no denying it, he can’t stand Hank. His voice, his face, his sick desire to be a human, there’s not a single thing about him that doesn’t give Erik the primal desire to get rid of Hank’s presence, at least two times a day. He doesn’t even like the kid’s surname either, but it’s even worse when he hears it from Charles’ mouth, covered with some kind of inappropriate and beyond understanding tenderness, that Erik wants to tear off with his nails.

 

“What do you want from us?” Hank finally asks, looking resigned in advance.

 

“What do I want from… _the both of you_?”

 

 _It’s a joke, right?_ Hank dares to think that Charles and him can be called an _us_? Oh, how funny and depressing he is.

 

“What about you, what do _you_ want from him?” Erik asks.

 

Because it’s the real question, isn’t it? Erik easily gets the proof because the scientist now frowns behind his nerd glasses, while his body tenses. Erik smiles and glances at Charles still sleeping blissfully oblivious of the exchange. He seems so peaceful that nothing should be in this world if its existence could one day bother Charles Xavier. Not a fly. Not a shady politician. Not a fucking human. Not a bullet. It’s somewhere between a promise and an obsession and it’s the only way to live that Erik knows.

 

“You’d like to go back to as you were before I came here?” Erik snarls but he isn’t done. “Bring his food to his bed, remind him where he puts his stuff, be the good dog at his feet? Or maybe you’re done with all this. Maybe you’d like him to go with you when you do your morning walk? Maybe… hold his hand while you do so?”

 

Hank spits an outraged laugh. “Why would I want to hold his h…”

 

“Yeah, you’re right, you’re not twelve anymore. So you’d like to be able to kiss him when he makes you laugh? To hear him call you _Darling_? To be a _real_ couple?”

 

This time, Hank’s eyes open wide and he slightly draws back on his armchair. He’s looking at Erik as if he doesn’t understand one word of English and Erik nods.

 

“And of course, you’d like him to finally _realize_ and to fuck you. You’re dreaming of it, don’t you deny it.”

 

“That’s just… wrong,” Hank growls, chewing his bottom lip, eyes dark behind his glasses.

 

“ _Wrong_ ? Oh right, Beast, I misunderstood. You want to fuck _him_ , of course, it’s obvious.You want to know what it feels like to have him under your fingers, shivering under your touch. You want to hear his voice when he’s turned on. Do you think he’s still talking like the good little professor he usually is, when he’s excited like a slut?” Erik mutters mercilessly.  “ _Oh God, Hank, that’s good, you’re so good, you’re doing it so well, don’t stop_ ,”  he says with a posh English accent and exaggerating a moan that makes Hank’s face go as white as the shirt in which Charles is still wrapped in.

 

The corner of Erik lips only raises and raises again, mockingly.

 

“Do you want to know if he’s even more beautiful when he comes?”

 

No answer. Hank’s still looking at him with eyes that are promising a lethal conclusion if he keeps talking. So, Erik leans a bit and puts his folded arms on his knees, before smiling.

 

“He _is_.”

 

Hank’s hand goes up in a snap and stops in the air. Erik lifts his fingers up to hold it thanks to the metal bracelet he’s wearing.

 

“Shut up, just shut up, don’t say stuff like that,” Hank grunts, trying to move his hand to probably punch the German in the face.

 

Erik curses and lowers his fingers. The bracelet follows the movement and Hank’s hand is now stuck on the bed, a few millimeters away from the laying body. Hank watches the gesture helplessly and raises his threatening eyes to Erik who continues:

 

“I can shut up, I don’t mind. Though… You want to see now, right?”

 

Erik doesn’t make a move this time and the second button of Charles’ shirt open. The third. The _fourth_. They spread in a light rustle and reveal Charles’ white chest to which Hank’s eye couldn’t help but settle. He straightens a bit more and Erik smiles. The side of the shirt with the metal buttons is mentally pulled over and unveils all of the Charles’ left side, and they’re now both watching the chest slowly rising at every inhalation. Erik’s eye are automatically attracted by the nipple he sucked and bit last night and by the collar bone, prominent underneath the pale skin.

 

He raises his gaze to watch Hank’s horrified but wanting eyes, all but shouting that they’re thinking about the same thing. And for the first time in his life, Erik understands McCoy. He still doesn’t move and this time controls the metal of Charles’ zipper on his jeans, sliding it open. The sound breaks the silence and Hank automatically closes his eyes when he notices it, shaking his head.

 

“Stop,” he says with a voice that Erik interprets as _Continue_.

 

“Alright, if you don’t want to talk or see…” Erik presses on, ignoring Hank. Slowly, he calls the bracelet and forces Hank’s right hand to land on Charles’ left pectoral in a delicate gesture. “Do you want to _touch_?”

 

Hank looks at his fingers now fully blue on the white skin and the contrast seems to shock the deepest part of his mind. He spreads his fingers, slowly, and his thumb doesn’t move, he _strokes_ . Erik lets him for a few seconds that he couldn’t count and when he feels in his guts that _this is it_ , he simply asks:

 

“Do you think he’d let you touch him that way, if he was conscious?”

 

Hank blinks, breathes in and suddenly withdraws as if he just burned himself and it’s precisely the case, Erik knows it. Because falling in love with Charles Xavier is painful, like melting, gradually, perniciously, _inevitably_. It’s almost compassion that Erik feels towards Hank right now. He watches him get up and awkwardly move back, almost falling on the armchair he’s pushing away. His face, now half transformed into the Beast, is blank. He bypasses the bed, doesn’t slam the door and disappears in the mansion’s abyssal silence.

 

Erik turns his head and looks at Charles, his naked chest, the mark of the sting on his forearm, his palm open to the ceiling. Erik gets up, takes off his clothes without blinking, eyes fixed on his lover. He gets on the bed, takes off Charles’ clothes too and pull the cover on both of their bodies. He lays down against Charles and holds him in his arm. Tighter. _Tighter_.

  
And if he’s smiling against Charles’ face he’s kissing right now, it’s because he finally feels that he won him back.


	6. Chapter 6

You can’t sleep at  times like this. Hank doesn’t know how it could be possible.

 

He woke up at two in the morning, then at half past three, then at four. Every time he opened his eyes, he had looked at his room submerged in darkness, moonlight obscured by thick, heavy, blue curtains. Hank stayed wide awake in the middle of his bed, feeling tired and exhausted despite his body nestling comfortably on the sheets. The sweetest thing in the world were the few moments he had right after regaining consciousness, those blissful seconds of forgetting the memories that always, slowly creeped up on him right after. It was a heavy weight he didn’t understand until it settled on his lungs and he was abruptly yanked back to reality…

  
_ Charles. _

 

And every time, the memory of what happened a few hours ago, a few meters away, kept coming back. He took a shower as soon as he left Charles’ bedroom but he still feels like the skin touching him is not his, that he was in somebody else’s body, one he doesn’t know. It’s because of _Erik,_ always because of him, pulling on the bracelet to force his hand to touch the professor. Because _he_ made him do it. And because Hank waited one second - _one second_ \- before pulling off.

 

Now, he doesn’t know if he’s exhausted or just  morose , so he gets off his bed even if  he can’t help a yawn from escaping . He passes by the bracelet he left on his nightstand and walks up to his private bathroom. He turns on the light, pulling on the cord next to the mirror where he observes himself, hands resting on the washstand. He breathes in and lowers his head. 

 

It’s not  rightl and he’s not okay. He can’t even look at the fingers which touched Charles, because they didn’t do so to help him, he did it for himself. He _ fondled _ him. He shakes his head, slowly, then faster and faster. He keeps his eyes closed and feels the familiar swarm under his epidermis, his jaw aching and his eyes burning. It’s been a year since he fully transformed, as his serum helps him control himself, but today, he doesn’t feel like he can control much things in his life anyway. So he lets go. He takes a deep breath and the feeling of  ripping himself in half to reborn  tears through him. He opens his eyes, breathes out, and looks at himself. Blue. Virgin. Beast. 

 

He lets go  of  the sink, turns on the radio to have  some noise invading his bathroom and mind and gets in the bath before closing the plastic curtain. He runs the hot water,  lets it run down his fur, his face, his closed eyes, those which saw Charles last night. No, not saw, but _ gazed at. _

 

_ What do you want from him? _

 

What does Hank want? Everything would be so much simpler if he knew. His life would be a freaking blessing if leaving Westchester doesn’t terrify him as much as going to Bucknell attracts him. So yes, Hank likes  being here and he likes to spend time with Charles - and he doesn’t regret one single second to have chosen to stay beside him rather than going his own way - but he never thought of touching him  _ like this _ , in a  manner that made his fingers  tingle on  Charles’ skin as if they’ve found their altar. It’s beyond the fact that Charles is a man, as Hank has never been attracted to anything else than the female body. It’s more than that. He’s his teacher, the one who came to tell him he wasn’t alone, that he wasn’t the only one  who is different. It’s Charles who  _ saved  _ him and saved so many others like them. Of all the sentiments that Hank  feels for Charles, respect is without doubt the one which prevails over the rest.

 

The fact remains that there’s a rest.

 

And it’s maybe  the rest of his feelings that prevented Hank from removing his hand  from  Charles’ body right away, last night.

 

He deeply breathes in and gets out of the shower.

 

* * *

 

 

In the winter garden, it’s lukewarm. The sky tends to clear and Erik observes above them the few light break which are making him  screw up his eyes. Charles is reading beside him, sitting in his round wicker chair, legs folded, gaze focused on the book between his hands. This morning, when Charles opened an eye and realized he had slept naked in Erik’s arm, he was delighted to see that his lover was back already and had asked him if he had a pleasant journey. He has really no  memory of what  had happened the evening before and Erik wonders if he doesn’t even recall it was Hank who gave him his treatment and that it was his hand which stroked his forehead. Or maybe Charles doesn’t mention it to  avoid making Erik angry. They won’t talk about it. For once, Erik  is happy to keep it to himself.

 

He’s dozing on his chair and forgets the tea that Charles made and the irritating sound of the birds to only focus on the feeling of his hands on his belly which is  rising with his breathing,  and the presence of Charles next to him. He doesn’t realize it yet, but it must be the first time that what he lives  for right now,  _ here _ , has nothing to do with what happened  _ over there _ . It’s because today, Erik has nothing to avenge and something to defend..

 

“Professor?”

 

Erik opens an eye even if it’s not him who was mentioned. Hank  is  standing in front of them. Against the light, Erik can’t see all the subtleties outlined on the youngest face.

 

“Yes, Hank?” Charles smiles, raising his head, resting his hand above his eyes.

 

“I accepted the genetic course at Bucknell. I had to make a decision quickly, as the next opening is in three months. I’ll leave on saturday to have time to find a room and settle.”

 

Erik looks at Charles’ reaction, which is, although  subtle ,  _ evident _ . He frowns a bit more and slightly leans over as if a weight just hit him on his shoulders. He smiles without ever showing his teeth and it’s that face which expresses all the things he doesn’t say. 

 

“That’s marvellous, Hank. I’m very glad for you,” he  says and  gets ready to stand up but Hank makes a  gesture to tell him to not bother.

 

He tells him it’s a friend from someone called Warren who will pick him up with her car. Hank is only looking at Charles and seems sad and maybe what Erik’s feeling right now is guilt. All the three of them don’t speak very much because everything that needs to be said doesn’t have  a place.

 

“ Will you give me news? Please? And take care of yourself, professor,”  Hank finally says.

 

“Of course. Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Charles  adds with a laugh , making an adorable sound and this time Erik gently leans forward, until he rests his hand on the professor’s thigh. 

 

Charles gets tensed and looks at Erik’s fingers on him before going up to his face, his own marked by pure shock. Hank still stares at Charles a few seconds more before he finally glances at the German, with blank eyes. 

 

“And I’ll be here,” Erik adds, because it’s true.

 

Charles purses his lips, peeks at the hand on  his thigh which is finally  showing what they’re hiding from Hank since a few weeks (and  what they were hiding from everyone else years ago) and  directs a sorry smile to Hank. It seems like Charles wants to say something but  nothing comes out of his mouth and his eyes are fixing the scientist with ardor. They must be communicating mentally so Erik lets them, as  a farewell anyway. It lasts a few seconds and Hank nods before he leaves.

 

“What did you tell him?” Erik asks when Charles sits in the back of his chair and starts to read his book again.

 

“Nothing,” Charles lies. 

 

* * *

 

 

Hank  checks his bags at the mansion foyer, counting the several number of bags around him . He  regrets not being able to take every book he owns with him, but he knows he could  come back for them if he needs to. He doesn’t go around the house because  that would seem too much like saying goodbye and he’s not ready for  it . He opens the main door to  make sure Linda isn’t here yet and pushes his bags  onto the front steps. They’ll drive  through the night to avoid the  heavy traffic. Hank  does not mind and won’t complain. He just pulled on his last bag when he hears his name.

 

“Hank.”

 

He turns around and sees Charles coming down the stairs at a trot. They already said goodbye to each other during dinner  last night and before Erik and him went to bed, but here he is again.

 

“Is your friend here yet?”

 

“I don’t  really  know her, professor. And no,  she isn’t here yet. But she’ll be here soon.”

 

“Alright. And of course you’re going to be friends. It’s impossible not to like you.” 

 

Charles smiles. Hank tries to do the same.

 

“You have everything you need?” Charles asks, leaning on the tip of his toes to have a look at the suitcases.

 

“I can’t take everything I want with me,” Hank answers, looking at him in the eyes.

 

“I guess not…” Charles shrugs, smiling. “But if you need me to send you some of your belongings, please do tell me. You’re not wearing your bracelet?”

 

Hank once blinks and raises his right hand, palm up to the sky. He stares at his naked skin, remembers the warmth of Charles’ chest and lies with an ease quite remarkable.  He then says,  “It”s in one of the bags.”

 

Charles smiles and nods, as if he’s comforted that Hank didn’t leave it behind . It is a gift he gave him when they went to Florida six years ago. 

 

Charles knew back then that it wouldn’t be of any help to go there but Hank had heard about Doctor Bennett, a man who apparently was achieving miracles in helping his paralyzed patients. They stayed for two weeks in a hotel close to the sea - even if they never went to the beach. They weren’t in Tampa for vacation or leisure, it would have seemed weird to jump into a swimsuit and leave to do some sunbathing, before going back to the hospital. Plus, two things weren’t made to hit the sand:Charles’ chair and Hank’s Beast feet as he couldn’t show them to the people around. During the day, Charles was going through medical exams, some of which looked like torture, seeing the tears which was silently running down his cheeks as he endured each and every trying tasks. But even if he looked like he was suffering like hell, Charles was too proud and desperate to be able to use his legs again, to stop the tests. 

 

And then the results came back and they weren't good; Bennett had said that modern medicine, even his research, couldn't do anything about the professor’s legs. They received the news with much composure, had thanked the doctor for his time and they went back to the hotel to take their suitcases before heading off to the airport. Charles waited for Hank in the lobby while he was talking to the flight attendants to see how they could bring Charles’ armchair into the plane. When Hank had found a solution - as he always did\- he came back to pick up Charles who immediately showed him a paper bag, a small blue one with an unmistakable ‘Thank you’ note attached to it. Hank felt stupid and he told him so. He was the one who insisted to come here, driven by the hope that an operation could make Charles walk again. But it didn't work. He had raised the professor’s hopes up only to crush them again, like breaking his spine for a second time. But Charles just laughed (even if he didn't seemed amused) and insisted so Hank accepted the gift. It was a simple bracelet, a centimeter wide and closing with an ingenious system that Hank immediately liked. For Charles, it was a way to end on a positive note, as he had said and Hank thanked him. Since then, he never left the bracelet. Until today, as it’s now hiding in the first drawer of the nightstand in Hank’s old bedroom.

 

They stay silent for a while  but Hank immediately thinks of something to say as he spots two headlights from a distance. Sure enough, a Ford pulls up front of the house. Hank grips clasped his fist tight and says , “Professor, please don't stop the renovation works.”

 

This seems to surprise him as he lowers his eyebrows and laughs despite himself. 

 

“Well of course, I’m not planning on stopping them…”

 

“ I was just…  As I'm the one who insisted  to start it , I thought…”

 

“It's alright, Hank. Everything will be fine.”

 

Hank sincerely wishes he could believe that too.

 

“Can I ask you another favor?”  he  adds  hastily , as he as nothing left to lose. 

 

“ Of course, Hank ,  anything  you want.”

 

“Promise me to at least think about the school reopening. I know Erik thinks it's a bad idea and I know he's… Well, that he'll live here now, but… Just think about it. I was waiting for you to be in a better shape  t o talk to you about it, but I know that you're capable to do it now. You're strong enough. Think about all the brilliant things you could do. The  renovation is  nearly done and there are so many people like us, lost or alone, that you could help, like you helped me. It doesn't seem fair  for the Xavier school  to never open its doors again. It doesn't seem… right.”

 

Hank finds himself short of breath, a bit excited now that he finally said all those things that were waiting to come out, at the tip of his tongue,  for so long. Charles’ still looking at him, surprised, and at least the idea seems to have settled in his mind. He nods and answers very calmly:

 

“I'll think about it. I promise.”

 

He puts his hand on Hank’s shoulder and this gesture didn't unite them since at least two month. Hank's jaw tightens as he steps forward and slowly raises his arms to  give Charles the  opportunity to back off, but he doesn't move. So Hank comes closer until he can hold the professor in his arms, in a powerful and awkward hug, as they  have never embraced each other before. Charles pats his back and Hank does too as it’s the kind of things that men do without any subtlety. They should be done now, three seconds should be too much. But it's not enough. Hank tightens his embrace and lowers his face to Charles’ neck before  breathing in his  scent, just as the Beast he is. What he wants right now, is to claim Charles for himself, at least for a few seconds. Their hands aren't uselessly patting anymore, they're the anchors that hold them together. 

 

“Thank you,” Charles whispers, gasping. 

 

_ Ask _ _ me to stay _ , Hank silently begs. 

 

Even if Hank's grip is stronger, he can certainly feel Charles’ arm strength around him. And if today Hank wants Charles to have retrieve his powers it's so that he can read his mind. 

 

_ So that at least one of us  _ _ can  _ _ understand what I'm feeling.  _

 

They let each other go and smile, a bit embarrassed about what just happened. Charles seems to be the one who's more confused so he taps the scientist’s shoulder again and is pleased when he sees the car getting closer to the main entrance. He  goes to speak  with the young woman while Hank  deposits his bags in the trunk. Charles wishes them a good trip and, as usual, asks that Hank gives him a call when they arrive. He stays on the front steps when the car leaves, rolling on the gravel as it’s rolling on half of Hank's life. 

 

* * *

 

 

Erik closes the curtain. Hank is finally gone and there  is  no one in the house  besides Charles and him. It must be the greatest victory there is, it’s the same feeling as finally winning an inestimable prize.  Erik sits down, letting himself savor his victory, and waits. Soon there are footsteps in the hallway and the door opens.  Charles  enters the room, wearing nothing else  but  clothes  that are too large for him and an upset pout, and Erik  wants to rip everything off with passion. He gets closer and helps him unbutton his sweater, leaning  down to the face he’s covering with kisses.

 

“Let’s play Chess.”

 

“No, thank you. Not tonight,” Charles politely refuses, letting Erik  take his clothes off.

 

Once he’s out of his sweater, he sits on the bed and gets his pajamas under his pillow to get changed. Erik  is  standing in front of him, watching him. Charles  is not looking at anything in particular and just seems… unfocused. But it’s not just an impression, he  _ is  _ because the Beast left. The German knows the solution: it’s liquid and it’s waiting in the nightstand. He goes around the bed and prepares the syringe before coming back and kneeling in front of Charles, showing it to him.

 

“My back doesn’t hurt right now…” Charles says with a fragile smile, stroking Erik’s cheek.  

 

“I know, but you always feel so much better when you take it.”

 

Charles frowns and seems confused. The treatment is here to cure physical pain, they both know it, but if Charles is unhappy and suffers, then they should do something about it. Erik takes advantage of the fact that his lover hasn’t put on his pajamas pants yet to kiss his thigh and to stroke them with his free hand.

 

“It’ll make you feel so good…”

 

He kisses the warm skin again,  moving up to the groin and lifts up his tee-shirt to kiss his belly, before reaching his lips. Charles doesn’t really  participate in  the kiss, thinking about the proposition and when Erik makes him stretch out his arm, he slowly lays down. Erik takes off his own shoes and climbs on the bed to straddle his lover’s legs. He’s holding his arm with one hand and uses his powers to guide the needle to pierce the fair skin. Charles barely winces and Erik lazily lets his tongue  invade Charles’ mouth, without even touching his lips, in an obscene kiss they’d be ashamed to share in public. He empties the syringe in his bloodstream and guides it back to his metal box. Charles closes his eyes and breathes in slowly, deeply. He’s always pulling a face when the treatment reaches every part of his body and Erik doesn’t stop staring at him. He strokes his tensed cheek with his forefinger, the shivering eyebrows,  and his jaw. Then his hands go down to the naked chest as Charles didn’t button his pajama top. Erik heavily swallows, watching his fingers lightly pressing the skin which is going white under the pressure of his digits, before sliding them between Charles’ legs, who moans under the touch. Erik smiles. 

  
Tonight, he wants them to be happy. Just the two of them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody! Thank you for your last kudos. Your support is truly motivating, especially because I first wrote this story in French, then I translated it, then amazing Mugen corrected it <3
> 
> WARNING: this chapter contains mentions of the concentration camps, drug use and semi-public sex. 
> 
> If you like this story so far, don't hesitate in writing a comment, you'll make me and my beta so ha-ha-ha-happy!

It’s quite ugly. It’s a huge building made of yellow bricks at the center of the campus, next to the sculpture of a bull, Bucknell’s mascot. Warren smiles at him and Hank forces himself to do the same. It has nothing to do with the Xavier mansion but it’s not surprising and Hank thinks he has to stop comparing his new life to what he used to have. He follows his friends to the sixth floor, both men dragging all of Hank’s bags as Linda already left to give back the car to her boyfriend. The bedroom where Hank is settling is not very big but it’s enough so that the forced proximity with another student isn’t too annoying. He doesn’t know his roommate yet but Warren uses a lot of superlatives when he talks about him, so that reassures him a bit. Warren shows him the bathroom, leans by the open window to point with his finger to the building where the classes will start on Monday, then he takes him through Danville House to show him the common room.

 

They see a lot of students who know Warren as he’s a member of the BSA, Bucknell Students Association. They shake Hank’s hand and everytime Warren tells them that he’s a brilliant man, he can’t help but blush. Hank’s a bit worried he’ll see eyes rolling up to the ceiling but he only hears welcome messages and some of the girls are looking at him a second more than necessary, obviously checking him out. Very pretty girls. That makes Hank blush too.

 

His first day on campus goes way too fast. There’s so many things to see, so many papers to sign. They cross kilometers between the building with the pool (which Warren is super excited about but Hank knows he won’t lay a single toe of his disproportionate feet in it) and all those where the classes take place. Beside the buildings where the student live, the architecture (of neocolonial inspiration and with an excessive use of graven wood) is quite pleasant. More than once, Hank thinks that Charles would like this library or this path. He mentally noted everything he wants to tell him in the letter he’ll write to him tonight, to relate his first day.

 

He should find the camera Alex gave him before he left for Vietnam which is currently somewhere in his bags. He could take a few pictures to send to the professor. Maybe he will get pictures of the house and the renovation works in return. He secretly hopes that will be the case.

 

At night, when he comes back to his room and meets his roommate Tonio for the first time, he is slightly apprehensive, wondering if they’ll get along, as they have never met before. But Tonio welcomes him shaking his hand and patting his shoulder at the same time - and it reminds him of that time when Charles told him what he thought about people who are using both of their hands to greet you: A man who, for example, encircles your hand with both of his when you meet, is open-minded, who’s welcoming and accepting you, physically. It’s reflected by everything he has lived through today.

 

Hank McCoy is now a part of other people’s lives, other than Charles Xavier’s.

 

* * *

 

 

Erik puts the book he was reading aside and runs his hand along the sheet, on the tepid spot that Charles has just vacated to take a shower. The whole room smells like sex and Erik adores that scent. He turns on his right side and looks at his lover’s pillow, flattened and moist with Charles’ spit when he bit into it to contain his moans - the workers are still in the bathroom down the hall to change the leaking sink. Erik prefers it when Charles doesn’t hold back his voice, when it resonates all around them and everywhere. It’s quite bestial but it turns him on. That wasn’t the case ten years ago.

 

The relation between Erik and sex has never been easy. Too many things come into play when two people give themselves to each other, elements that Erik doesn’t handle well. First, he has an issue with bodies in general. Erik saw so many ones that had been scraggy, humiliated,dehumanized. Life is just not the same after that. He dared to touch himself later than the boys of his age do and the first times only made him feel ashamed. He couldn’t feel any pleasure from it. The boys around him at the boarding school were talking about it, it was indecent and yet exciting. For them. For Erik it was just another way of being different. Then, the other boys started to talk about the girls from the boarding school across the road, about their breasts and their naked bodies against theirs and this time, Erik understood there was something else that was holding him back from having a connection with sex: trust. To get undressed in front of someone is not only physical, that’s at least how Erik sees it. You don’t just show skin; you reveal scars, time, _numbers_ written with indelible ink. And it contains so many things that so little people understand. Because the others don’t know what happened at the concentration camps. Or maybe they prefer not to accept it. Untold stories of horror.

 

Erik’s first time isn’t a memory he could forget one day. Her name was Sarah and she was two years younger than him. He was eigtheen years old and he had met her at a party organized at the boarding school for girls, for the retirement of one of the teacher. Sarah had long copper-colored hair, extremely fair skin, and a body so thin, people were afraid they’d break her in half just by brushing past her. They had enough to eat at that school where half of the student were orphans because of the war, but only those who knew the camps couldn’t get back to their normal weight. She was really pretty and she was Jewish, that’s why Erik had chosen her. Because she was like him. They talked all night long, timidly, then they decided to see an exhibition together the weekend after. All throughout their date, her eyes filled with a sadness that seemed to be a part of her soul, had caressed the abstract paintings. Erik hadn’t been able to look at anything but her frail body, the movement of her legs, swinging from right to left the thin fabric of her blue dress, covered with tiny flowers. He kissed her when they went out of the museum, under a tree that was protecting them from the sun. It made her smile.

 

Erik was sure they’d feel the same about their first time, that it’d unite them in something that would go beyond them. It was very hot that day but they had kept the windows closed so that their friends, in the courtyard, wouldn’t hear them. They took off their clothes on each side of the bed and slipped under the sheets. Erik, fascinated, had kept it a bit up to look at the small breast, the visible bones of her hips and her sex she tried to hide by closing her legs. When he leant against her, the religious silence of the room shattered, filled by a moan as feminine as it was delicate, which seemed like a breath of liberation. Distracted, Erik tried to get up but she reassured him by kissing his chin, encircling him with her fragile arms. She was shy and she liked it, as much as him. But the thing was that she wasn’t afraid of showing it. Unlike Erik. Her gestures were soft, sometimes clumsy, but she was always smiling. She was enjoying every second, Erik could see it. When Erik came into her for the first time, she stopped stroking his back and closed her eyes. He leant his forehead against hers and waited. A few minutes. Then, she asked him to continue. Her voice was soft, she wasn’t afraid to talk, to say to Erik that she liked it, that he was so tender, that he was doing it so well. Erik was silent, his movement were mechanical and his mind was far away from this small bedroom of Munich’s boarding school. It was thanks to the hormones or other chemical miracle that their movements intensified; Sarah’s voice too. Erik thought he made her climax, given her reddened cheeks and the way her legs encircled his back. He came too because, even if he didn’t feel a pleasure as strong as Sarah’s, it has been good.

 

He didn’t wait a single second more when he was done and he pulled out before laying against her, in the tiny bed. She stroked his back, his chest, kissing him while she did so, her face enlightened by grace and a smile that got Erik jealous.

 

Because they had went through the same past, the same trauma, but she succeeded in liking what they just did. Not Erik. He felt a terrible void inside and he straightened up to sit, his face hidden in his hands. He wanted to cut it in pieces, to tear away everything that had happened one day before his eyes. She hugged him, kissed his neck and shoulder and whispered repeatedly, during a time that can’t be quantified:

 

“It’s going to be okay.”

 

Sarah stayed until Erik was calm again. They saw each other a few more times after that, in the city or when working together on something for school. But they didn’t touch each other again and Erik really felt relieved when Hans Wilnow asked Sarah out a month after that day.

 

All the time that followed weren’t the same. Sarah had a softness so pure that Erik didn’t want to find it again with somebody else, afraid he might break it. So, when he arrived in Berlin when he was twenty years old, during his quest to find Shaw, he stopped in the street people told him not to go to. He paid a woman with curly brown hair and didn’t even ask her her name. It had nothing to do with Sarah, with Munich. It was dark outside, the bedroom was dirty and the walls weren’t thin enough to hold back the noises coming from the people in the rooms around them. They fucked on the bed, barely naked and for the first time, a sentiment of frustration started to boil in him. He asked her to shut up, to not make any noise when she started to fakely moan, promising he would pay her double if she kept quiet. He ended up coming in the dead silence, without even feeling satisfied. But Erik didn’t know how else he could act. Always the same rhythm, the same urge. Without any desire, just an undefined and gangrenous need.

 

Then Charles came in his life and everything, absolutely _everything_ fell into pieces. Because Charles Xavier saved him before he even knew him and no one had ever looked at him the way Charles did. Erik hated to be touched as much as Charles liked to touch; it made the professor burst into laughter more than once when he was barely brushing the German’s forearm to hold his attention but still managing to make Erik jump in surprise. Then they decided to find other mutants like them and the trip across the country crushed the last barriers Erik had built around his own soul. They were coming back from a fruitful day where they succeeded in recruiting four persons – which had never happened before – they had laughed and were exhausted from walking all around Memphis. They were in the hotel elevator, Erik telling Charles how the new tramway lines had helped the economy of the city, when Charles leant and kissed him on the lips.

 

“I am sorry but I highly wanted to do that. Well, I’m sorry I kissed you without your approval, but I’m not sorry I wanted to do so,” Charles simply said, giving him a coy smile.

 

Erik looked at him for a long time and got out of the elevator when the doors tried to close for the fourth time. They went back to their bedroom without sharing a word and sat on their bed without even looking at each other. It took some time for Erik to speak at least:

 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

 

“I don’t think we can be sure before we try.”

 

“I don’t’ want to hurt you, Charles.”

 

“I’m not made of glass.”

 

“Don’t joke, I’m serious.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“You don’t know how it works. With me.”

 

“Let me see, then.”

 

Erik turned his head to Charles who did the same. They looked at each other and Charles added:

 

“Unless you want to talk about it, but I doubt it will be the case.”

 

Erik blinked when his eyes hurt him from being static for so long. He nodded and Charles slightly smiled, before resting his fingers against his own temple.

 

_Madrid, Sao Paolo, Chicago. Women. A man. Streets. Sheets. At night. Not a single noise. Not a name. Pain. So much Pain. Alone._

 

“Erik…” Charles breathed with red eyes, getting on the floor at the same second. He almost crawled to the German and put his hands on his thighs. “Don’t feel guilty, don’t… You’re unique, Erik, absolutely unique. Let me show you what you deserve. Please. Trust me. Trust yourself. ”

 

Erik shook his head, his chest covered by Charles’ hand which was gently pressing him to make him lay down. Charles straddled him, brushed his nose with his and they were looking at each other, squinting, before Charles asked:

 

“May I…?”

 

Erik’s mind was screaming _no_ with the same toughness that his lips said _yes_ . Charles smiled and kissed him but this time, their tongues touched and it wasn’t only his mouth that Erik had opened. Charles was brilliant, one of those men that Erik thought he could never meet until he died . Charles wasn’t only smart, he was also soft and gentle and that’s, _that’s_ what made Erik jealous. Because Charles sees everyone entirely, totally, and he can still feel the good in them. With a mere glance to someone he doesn’t know, Erik decides he doesn’t like him, doesn’t _trust_ him.

 

But he trusts Charles. Him alone. Sometimes, Erik thinks his mother would have like Charles. It’s the saddest thought in the world.

 

Charles kissed him for a long time then he took off their clothes. He was stroking, licking, devouring with nothing more than his eyes. There were no nails to scratch, no teeth to mark the skin, but Erik was shivering nonetheless. Charles made him open his legs to get closer to his entrance and Erik straightened up immediately, catching the thin wrist he almost crushed under his grip.

 

“Don’t,” Erik growled.

 

“Okay,” Charles half smiled tenderly, before slowly moving his fingers to regain his blood circulation.

 

Erik apologized and Charles kissed him to reassure him. He lay down on his back and asked with a dainty voice:

 

“Do you want to be on top?”

 

Erik’s cock got harder just by hearing those words. He nodded, settled above the naked body and caught Charles’ wrists to force them above his head, but Charles delicately avoided his grip to put his hands on the Germans’ shoulders. A simple smile, just a simple smile and Erik didn’t insist. Charles wouldn’t let him act as he always did, it was a silent promise.

 

Erik growled out of frustration several times, when Charles asked him to slow down the movement of his fingers in him. He tightened his left hand to a point he almost destroyed the lamp made of metal on the nightstand with his powers, when Charles asked him to add Vaseline, as he didn’t feel ready. When the eternity of waiting finally ended, Charles nodded and Erik made him spread his legs, trying to hold back his impatience to avoid another irritating _Please, go slow, Erik_. Lining up in front of the lubed hole, Erik thought about Sarah. He didn’t dare to close his eyes to make her leave his mind, but even seeing the manly body under him wasn’t helping.

 

“That’s okay. Everything’s fine,” Charles told him.

 

Erik didn’t realize he was projecting his obsession into Charles that much. He didn’t blame Charles from listening to him because he respected his powers with a tender allegiance. When he finally entered him, the memory of the frail body, of the numbers inked on white skin and the feminine voice definitely faded away to be replaced by Charles’ smell, the feeling of his warm skin against Erik’s and the way his blue eyes were staring at him, as if there was nothing else in this world that deserved to be looked at with the same devotion. Then, there was his voice.

 

“Erik... “

 

It was only his name, the German should have been able to support it. He closed his eyes, his chest against the professor's. He was holding back his hips from breaking Charles and actually letting him get used to his presence. Charles' arms hugged him and he murmured, lips a few millimeters away from his ear:

 

"It's perfect, Erik. You're perfect."

 

"Shut up," he moaned back as he couldn't hold it back anymore.

 

Charles made him go through one hour of foreplay, but it wasn't enough to make him forget all of Erik's urges. It was mechanical, bestial. Erik couldn't let them talk, they couldn't share that level of intimacy. So, Charles stayed quiet and his voice resonated.

 

_'Don't stop.'_

 

Erik opened his eyes big. Charles' mouth was still closed.

 

 _'I_ _shut_ _up, as you asked me to.'_

 

The voice was clear with an underlying humor. Erik pushed into Charles without holding back this time.

 

_'Stop it. Shut it. Don't do that. Continue. Charles.'_

 

He didn't know what he was saying - what he was _thinking_. He was in Charles and he was feeling Charles in him and something started to be too much. He got tensed and his movements became more dry, more selfish.

 

_'Don't hide, Erik.'_

 

_'What do you want?'_

 

_'You.'_

 

_'You have me. Literally in you.'_

 

_'It's not just sex, Erik.'_

 

_'It is.'_

 

_'It's so much more than that.'_

 

Erik pulled off completely, moaning. He looked at Charles, out of breath like him, and he grabbed him by the hips. He caught him, pinching his skin, and forced him to lay on his stomach. He spread his bottom cheeks and fucked him without any patience. Charles arched his back, his fingers pulling on the sheets as white as his knuckles.

 

_'Erik, let me just...'_

 

_'What?'_

 

_'Let me tell you what I feel.'_

 

Erik didn't answer back. He didn't know if Charles was talking about his own body or the memories raging below Erik’s consciousness. He held onto the professor's hip and shoulder and fucked him for a long time, with deep thrusts that should have made Charles moan until his voice broke, but he didn't make a sound, his mouth muffled by the pillow. Nevertheless, he didn't stay silent. Not really.

 

_'So good, it's so good, Erik. You. Just you. Everything I feel in you. Your desires. Let me be here for you.'_

 

_'Until when?'_

 

_'I'm not planning on leaving you.'_

 

_'Everything ends one day.'_

 

_'I don't want to.'_

 

Charles had been a spoiled brat, it was not surprising he dared to say this kind of things. But Erik understood him. He laid down on Charles' back and kissed his neck and Charles understood the word forming in the German's mind before he was even aware of it.

 

_'You don't want it to end too, Erik. You and me.'_

 

Erik kissed him harder and covered him with his muscled arms. It was his only answer and it erased all the doubts Charles could have had.

 

It took days for Erik to understand they didn't only fuck that night. And every time that followed, in a hotel room or in Charles' bedroom in the mansion, the words Charles was thinking became stronger and louder, until he took them out of both of their heads and dare to speak them out loud. Erik let him speak or kiss him without them disappearing under the nearest sheets right after their lips touched. He even let him touch his hair, if Charles wanted to.

 

Life would have been very different if Erik hadn't hated Shaw as much as he loved Charles.

 

* * *

 

 

Hank rarely felt that good. Paradoxically, he also had never felt so tired. It’s because he spends his days researching, learning, discovering things and he’s pretty sure that’s the best feeling in the world. When he wakes up in the morning, he does so knowing that his day will be filled with books, amazing information, and meeting with teachers as passionate as himself. Even sleep doesn’t appear appealing when, as soon as he exits the classroom, he goes to find Warren, Dani and Stephanie. They spend their nights at the cafeteria or playing bowling. They talk about genetics and biology a lot and they love every minute of it.

 

Hank hasn’t got any answer to the last letter he sent to Charles. It doesn’t bother him as much as it did when that happened last month.

 

* * *

 

 

“When will this be over?”

 

“I don’t know, Erik. Maybe ten o’clock? Last time, it ended at ten o’clock. ”

 

Erik closes the car and walks next to Charles, on the pavement. They both look at the building with the brown glass windows, where two old men entered, talking loudly in posh accent.

 

“I’m not asking you to come with me,” Charles states more than he asks.

 

“Don’t even bother. I don’t have a lot of self-control when it comes to Swiss bankers. Or with any Swiss in general, for that matters.”

 

“They are very tactful people, however.”

 

“Yeah, tactful when it comes to shutting their freaking mouths.”

 

Charles gives him a discreet smile and strokes Erik’s arm. He told him he wasn’t very pleased to go to this general assembly organized by his bank, but given his fortune (which he sometimes has trouble following the expansion), it’s better for him to be present in the meetings. He recommended Erik a few restaurants opened at night where he could wait for him, but Erik chose the closest one, two streets away from here – even if people tend to dance there, after nine o’clock. He prefers to stay next to Charles and never mind the noise and sweat. They nod to say goodbye and Charles disappears in the building.

 

Erik decides to walk a bit, before going to eat something. He ends up in a library and directly goes to the section with the most recent books. It’s all about personal blossoming and Vegetarianism. All the picture in black and white of their authors represent men with long hair and beard, so Erik quickly goes to find comfort in the History section. It’s strange, to discover ten years of a country in which he was confined; jerks killed Malcolm X and there’s not even a name so that Erik can avenge him. He reads how the war in Vietnam started but he still doesn’t get it. Elvis got married with a kid. Black people from all over the country start to revolt to claim how hard it is to integrate in the society and that’s something Erik totally gets.

 

_Two men walked on the freaking moon._

 

Erik closes the book.

 

* * *

 

 

“C’mon, Hank, they’re doing a bossa nova night !” Tonio insists, dancing clumsily.

 

“No, thank you, I can’t dance, because of, you know, that thing.”

 

“What thing?”

 

“Well, the fact that I’m a male,” Hank smiles, before going back to his bookcase to find the book he’s searching for.

 

Tonio pouts and gets up on his feet to stand next to his roommate:

 

“You never go with us, not even once. You’ll love the _Banana Time_ , trust me! You don’t have to dance. Warren and I do, of course, because chicks love it, but James doesn’t dance either, you could stay with him. Plus, I heard Dani’s coming too…”

 

Hank doesn’t react when the name of Dani is mentioned and still waits for a few seconds before agreeing. It’s true, he doesn’t particularly like this kind of place, but at the same time he doesn’t know if he can really judge as he had never went to a dance club.

 

As it turns out, the sound is even louder than he would have guessed, but the colored lights and the wide space where his friends are settled on slack seats make it so much more tolerable. Hank follows Tonio to the back of the room where they find in an alcove about ten students from different courses. Hank only knows Warren, James, Stephanie, Dani and Peter, but he shakes everybody’s hand anyway. He settles between them and discreetly checks what has already been ordered – it’s not that he won’t help anyone too drunk to get back to their rooms, but he’d rather not do that again, now that he has left the Xavier mansion. What he sees surprises him nevertheless: a few coke, beers, only two glasses of strong alcohols. Maybe the night will be better than expected.

 

“Do you want to dance?” Warren asks him but Hank just bursts out in laughters and shakes his head no.

 

He looks at his friend standing up and going on the dancefloor with Tonio who’s singing out the lyrics of the song. Hank smiles and feels Dani’s thigh against his own. She leans gracefully and whispers to his ear:

 

“I’m glad you’re here.”

 

The lighting is green now. It covers his red cheeks.

  


* * *

 

 

Erik raises his head and sees Charles smiling at him, getting closer to the table where he’s finishing his plate. Charles takes a seat in front of him, sighing loud enough to be heard despite the music that makes the humans dance.

 

“How did it go?”

 

“It was way too long, but it went well,” Charles says with a  smile, winking at him, which is something Erik doesn’t quite understand.

 

Charles rests his elbow on the back of the chair and turns around to look at the dancefloor. He nods in rhythm and finally faces Erik again to add with joy:

 

“I love[ this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g)!”

 

Now leaning toward him, he could clearly smell his breath. It makes Erik smile.

 

“Have you been drinking?”

 

“A bit,” Charles confesses, shrugging (but the gesture more looks like a convulsion, then _a bit_ certainly means _a lot_ ). “You know how this kind of meeting goes…”

 

“Not really.”

 

“... There’s always a banker to fill your glass with wine and another one to slide contracts under your hand to make you sign them. But I was brave. I only signed two. Wait! No, I love this song!”

 

He speaks loud enough to be sure his voice pierces through the music and it’s obvious now that the professor is drunk, jumping from a subject to another. Erik restrains himself from sighing out loud ( _what the hell is this song?_ ) but Charles must read his mind as he presses hard with his hand on the table and leans forward.

 

“Oh my God! You’ve never heard Stevie Wonder, have you? Come with me,” he calls, catching his lover’s wrist.

 

_‘You’re kidding, right?’_

 

“Charles,” Erik growls, as it’s obvious they won’t dance together.

 

“You’ll love it, come on!” Charles says, laughing now, pulling on the motionless wrist, his own feet sliding on the burgundy carpet.

 

Erik slowly shakes his head and Charles gives up, sticking his tongue out. It pisses Erik off when Charles acts like a child, it makes him want to slap him. Because Charles knows how irresistible he is when he feigns innocence and Erik doesn’t want him to be even more charming than he already is unintentionally. He looks at the body getting down on the dancefloor where a woman immediately walks to him. They exchange smiles and get closer to dance together. Erik’s fork moves without he even notices it.

 

Erik has never heard about this Stevie Wonder before but it seems to turn the whole room in a joyful mess, as hips move together and glued and arms smoothly stretch out, up towards the ceiling. It doesn’t make him feel comfortable to see all those men and women so close to each other, it physically irritates him. It makes him nauseous to look at tangled up bodies in plain view, without any restraints, and the fact that it’s _Charles_ who’s pressed against a woman and a tall black man’s back isn’t really helping calm his nerves. He clenches his fist and the fork instantly bends in on itself. He stands up, crosses the room, goes down the few stairs and puts his feet on the wooden dancefloor. He pushes away some annoying shoulders that are preventing him from seeing Charles and catches him by the elbow when he reaches him.

 

“We should go, Charles.”

 

Charles opens his lips, apparently thrilled to see Erik on the dance floor but there must be a misunderstanding as, once again, they won’t _dance together_ . He gets ready to pull his lover out of here, using his strength or even his powers if he has to, but [a new song starts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjfw1arTr0) and this one, he only knows too well. _Well, fuck it_.

 

“Peppino Galiardi... “ Charles gladly states with shiny eyes.

 

“He’s not dead yet?”

 

“Oh, thank God no. Plus I asked Logan, he’s still alive in 2014.”

 

“So I have to live with his music all around for the next forty years?”

 

“Well, that depends if you want to live with _me_ all around for the next forty years.”

 

Erik smiles and shakes his head because Charles succeeded in making him shut his mouth and it certainly wasn’t easy to do so. He remembers the afternoon spent in the winter garden, ten years ago, when Charles used to bring his record-player to listen to this italian over-the-hill singer. Only Charles Xavier can enjoy this kind of romantic music, where people sing I love you, with a monstrous simplicity. The worst part about it, is that it actually moves him. When the professor listens to Gagliardi, he nods his head with the rhythm, his eyes closed and maybe he dreams about being on a vespa in Rome. The fact remains that Erik dreams of destroying the 45 RPM between his hands. Because there’s a carefree hope in those songs and Erik thinks it’s unfair to pretend life is that easy.

 

He wants to move away to persuade Charles to follow him, but his lover’s hands are already on his hips. Erik stares daggers at him.

 

_‘No.’_

 

He mentally screams it but it makes his lover smile. All the people around them seemingly forgotten, at least for Charles whose movements are becoming lustful. His shoulders are waving, his pelvis too. His fingers tangle up with Erik’s.

 

“Stop. Not here.”

 

“Don’t be so tense, Erik. Two men can dance together outside of San Francisco now, you know.”

 

Erik doesn’t quite get the link between California and the fact that Charles wants to dance with him in front of other people, but Charles is smiling and when he does so, Erik’s common sense (which he can hold on to, most of the time) melt with a simplicity that’s quite dangerous. _When it comes to_ _worst_ , thinks the German, _Charles_ _can_ _erase their memory_. He surrenders and finally gently sways, making Charles turn, holding his hand in his above the professor’s head. He hates Gagliardi but he had already danced with Charles more than once before, in private. It is often an introduction to sex and it seems to still be the case. To see his lover so liberated, so blooming in front of him, moving his body of which he regained all the control, is bewitching. Sometimes, Charles closes his eyes but when he opens them again, there’s only Erik he’s looking at. He presses their palms together and their hips one last time before whispering directly in his ear.

 

“I want you...”

 

Erik growls as he feels Charles’s hard cock against his thigh and the way his lover is slowly going down on him - _in the middle of the freaking dance floor_ \- doesn’t help his own erection to fade away. He catches his elbow to prevent him for kneeling and mentally calculates how long it’ll take them to get back to the mansion - at least half-an-hour and Erik doesn’t want to wait that long. They can park outside the city and fuck quickly on the backseat of the car, unless they stop in a hotel, but they’d have to find one with thick walls as it’s certain that someone else will hear Charles’ voice when he’s that horny.

 

“...Right here.”

 

* * *

 

 

“With the DNA sequencing,” Hank continues, using his hand to emphasize his words which he knows are drowned by the surrounding music, “we would be able to determinate the order of the nucleotides.”

 

“I don’t get it, by using Klenow fragment?”

 

“Even without, ideally,” Hank smiles. It’s surprising Dani so much that it makes her burst out with laughters.

 

She calms down while drinking her Coke and puts it back on the glass table before putting her cold hand on Hank’s thigh.

 

“Hank, you have no idea how great it is to be able to speak about the human genome.”

 

“The feeling is mutual.”

 

She smiles at him. She fixed her dark hair in a ponytail that doesn’t hold all of the tiny hairs now, because of the heat, but at least it clears her shoulders. She’s wearing a grey dress with sequin on it which is contrasting with Hank’s dark blue costume. At least, it doesn’t seem to discourage her as she suggests:

 

“Would you like to dance with me ?”

 

“Out of respect for you, I am obliged to say no.”

 

“I don’t know how to dance either, you know.”

 

“Why do you want us to do so, then?”

 

“To have an excuse to be in your arms.”

 

Hank’s heart skips a beat. To be hit on by the most beautiful girl of the class wasn’t planned for sure. She’s far too pretty and too intelligent for him, and even if Warren’s dancing skills are phenomenal and that James is hitting on her since she arrived, she wants to dance with Hank. He heavily swallows, making his Adam’s apple bounce. He nods (incapable of answering with words) as she stands up (he forgets one second too late to lower his gaze to avoid looking at her bottom when she walks in front of him) and takes the hand she’s holding out to him.

 

They get on the dancefloor and Warren and Tonio smile to see them joining the dancing crowd, but they keep walking to be alone in a corner. She rests her arms around Hanks’ shoulders who beats his timidity by putting his fingers on her hips. He doesn’t dance well (but she does, because she’s a woman, so everything she does is oh so very graceful). But she smiles all the same.

 

Hanks says to himself that she has really pretty lips.

 

* * *

 

 

Erik blinks and moves his head back to look at Charles and more particularly his mouth that dared to say such a thing. Charles seems overjoyed about it. He doesn’t move anymore, standing straight in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by blurry movements of people dancing.

 

 _'Could you be more_ _lustful_ _?'_

 

Erik grasps his elbow to drag them away. They quickly pass by the table where Erik ate, where Charles retrieves his own jacket. In the restroom, Erik pushed each of the door open to be sure they’re alone and finally pushes Charles in the last stall who seems overexcited, impatience and alcohol making his movements feverish and his gaze out of focus. He barely waits for Erik closing the latch before pushing him against the door without being able to master his strength. It should have irritated Erik but it turns him on to see Charles’ state, almost bestial. They kiss as if it’s the first time, as if Erik’s tongue _must_ invade Charles’ to mark him of his presence, today and forever. But it’s not enough to express all the raw and obscene intensity that’s eating them up from the inside, so Erik’s teeth closes on Charles’ open lips, who moans huskily.

 

“Do you know what I want, right now… ?” Charles pants without trying to whisper.

 

Erik shakes his head.

 

_'Tell me.'_

 

He thinks it and doesn’t use his words because he wants Charles to use his telepathic powers. They don’t mentally discuss anymore when they fuck, as they used to, and he misses it. It’s so powerful to feel Charles’ voice in him, not in the infinite space where their bodies keep moving, coming across each other too rarely. But Charles keeps on smiling and doesn’t answer out loud. He closes the toilet lids, forces Erik to sit on it and straddles his thighs. He furtively kisses him and catches his jacket he had left on the ground to take out a box from the pocket. He handed it to Erik.

 

The serum.

 

Erik raises his head and looks at his lover, lost between pleasure and something Erik never saw before.

 

“Is your back hurting you? I gave you your treatment only six hours ago…”

 

“No, no, but it’s so much better when you give it to me. Everything feels so good and I don’t have to think about my back, about the position, about the rest…”

 

Erik should ask more about what _‘the rest’_ is but Charles is already taking out the syringe to put it in his hand. He undoes the buttons of his left sleeve then he’s folding it back. Charles never had two treatments in less than twenty-four hours and maybe it’s the alcohol that makes him dizzy. Erik doesn’t know what to think, what to do. Everything is on hold right now. Against his boner, he feels Charles’ body languidly moving; in his hand, the cold needle.

 

“Please, Erik, do it for me…”, Charles whispers, rapidly kissing his lips, his tongue stroking them to make him react.

 

Erik isn’t physically built to refuse Charles Xavier’s pleas. He pulls on the left wrist to stretch out his arm and sticks the needle in the dark vein, and it’s the first time he does it using his hand and not his powers. It’s somehow more carnal and it creates in him an abyssal sensation that he can’t distinguishes between an opening and a void. Charles pushes his head back and his smile is so beautiful, so pure, that the serum seems to be the solution to a problem Erik didn’t see before. He remembers Charles’ body dancing, moving with a haunting lightness, but it’s now that the treatment is invading his bloodstream that he genuinely seems happy. Because of that, Erik hates him. He doesn’t empty the syringe and puts it back in the box before catching his face between his fingers to force his lover to look at him. He must be the one fulfilling him, the one to make him feel what he wants to feel, so he slides his tongue in Charles’ mouth and unbuttons his shirt aggressively. Charles lets himself be pushed around, his head reeling from right to left without seeming able to control it. Erik leans and bites his chest, under the collar bone and suddenly, Charles asks:

 

“Do you want some?”

 

 _That_ wasn’t planned. Erik draws back to stare at him and Charles must feel his confusion as he’s slowly sliding down before resting his knees on the ground. This cheeky beggar knows how to talk to him.

 

“It feels so good, you’ll see. It’s so strong and… We could live it together. I _want_ to live it with you. Trust me.”

 

His eyes stay transfixed on Erik’s, as his hands are searching for the metal box. He finds it and hands it to Erik again who observes the liquid, which now occupies less than the half of the container. A glance to his lover’s face and Erik makes up his mind. Because they’ll be _together_.

 

He takes the syringe again and stares at it. It seems different now that he will be using it on his own skin. The needle seems bigger, the liquid more uncertain. But Erik grew up surrounded by fear and uncertainty and his survival skills has always bridged the gap between reluctance and action. So, he breathes in deeply and presses the needle against his own arm. Charles is stroking his lover’s knees, kissing his thigh through his jeans. He leans back a little to watch as the tip of the needle slowly sinks into the skin. He is muttering words like ‘ _gorgeous, Erik_ ,’ and _‘perfect_ ,’ over and over, but Erik doesn’t quite know if he’s really hearing or imagining them. Since when did everything start to become such a blur?

 

It’s so hot in here that he doesn’t get how he can make sense of what is around him as he feels so far away from where he is. His only anchor to reality is Charles’ hand and the breath he takes just after he empties the serum in his vein feels like the first of his life. He breathes in deeply with his nose. He wonders if his movements have always been so heavy before realizing they’re only stronger. Everything, _everything_ is clearer. The tiles around them are _white_ . The door is _green_ . The music above them is _oppressive_ . And Charles, _Charles_ is here, kneeling before him, _smiling_. Erik catches him by the neck and drags him closer to rest his forehead against his.

 

“Suck me,” he orders with a husky voice, “Suck me and talk to me as you used to. Mentally.”

 

Charles closes his eyes and tries to kiss him but Erik stops him.

 

“Do it,” he _begs_ , because that way, they won’t only fuck, they’ll be united by so much _more_.

 

Charles succeeds in pulling out of the German’s grip and stands up, his lips wearing an insolent grin. He unbuttons Erik’s jeans and his own, before straddling his thighs again. Erik is torn between looking at Charles’ mouth and the sensation on his lips when he finally allows the kiss, feeling his lover’s tongue against his, moist and scorching. He licks the fingers Charles is raising to him and barely notices his own hand slowly disappearing under clothes to reach for his lover’s body he’s preparing. He doesn’t care that they’re making all these noises, or that their hearts pound excitedly in time with the bass’ tremors of the song playing in the background. He groans when Charles finally releases his cock and strokes him before so very slowly sitting on it. Erik kisses his neck, bites his shoulder. It takes him a few seconds to be fully aware of what Charles feels like right now, taking him deep within him. Tight. Offered. _His_.

 

There is not another sound that Charles’ breath. Nothing else to feel than the sensation of their chests pushing against each other with every ragged breath they take.

 

To love and live. Finally.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure you’ll be able to find your way to your bed?”

 

“I only drank one beer,” Hank smiles, leaning against the cabriolet where his five friends are settled.

 

“You never know,” Warren adds, winking.

 

They all laugh and Hank salutes them with his hand before moving back to let them leave. The car is a bit old so Warren has trouble starting it. Hank takes the opportunity to look at Dani’s face again, calm and charming, until the motor finally roars into life. Hank waits until the car disappears after the first intersection and smiles. He slowly walks up to the residence and surprises himself by singing the Louis Prima song they heard just before they left. He’s exhausted but he strangely doesn’t want to go to sleep just yet. Tonio is still at the dance club and will probably sleep at Kristie’s place so Hank closes the door behind him and fully undress before sliding in his pyjamas bottoms. Alone, there’s no need to wear socks to hide his feet. He lays down on his bed and smiles, smiles, _smiles_. Because in his head, there are Tonio’s jokes, the way Stephanie imitates Mrs. Mendosa and the way Dani’s hips felt against his. They danced together during three songs, enough to make him want to see her again. Tomorrow. They swore they’ll see each other tomorrow. Because she seems to have something that Hank is looking for.

  
He closes his eyes and thinks about them, about his class, about his life in which he blossoms. And for the first time in months, when he finally falls asleep, not a single time the name of Charles crosses his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Beta:** awesome and wonderful deadoralive001! Thank you so, so much dear, I adore you!

 **Warning for this chapter:** violence and angst. 

* * *

 

“Sienna.”

 

“Oh really ?”

 

Erik raises an eyebrow and turns his head on the right to look at Charles who is leaning against the door, smiling at him. He’s bleary-eyed, his head, resting against the window, smoothly reels, swinging because of the car’s movement. Erik catches Charles’ hand on his leg to kiss it, before putting it back where he found it.

 

“I’ve always wanted to see… How is it called? The _Palios_?”

 

Erik nods and shifts up a gear when they get closer to the mansion. The car’s lights tear through the darkness. They turned on the radio because Charles drank too much to be trusted to maintain Erik awake by talking to him.

 

They both stayed in the booth ten minutes after they both came, the time necessary to be able to clean themselves, while Erik never stopped lazily kissing Charles’ face. Erik is sure someone heard them, he doesn’t know why but he felt it. Somehow, he doesn’t care. They came out, Erik’s arm around the younger man’s shoulders, they paidthe meal Erik had and left to get to the car. It was quite hard to leave New Rochelle (Erik ran a red light and nearly hit a white Ford when they crossed Second Avenue) but he finally feels the effects of the serum quitting his body, now.

 

“Venice!” Charles suddenly exclaims, raising both of his hands as if he’s touched by divine Grace. “I’d _love_ to go to Venice!”

 

Charles is so unbelievably adorable, Erik laughs.

 

“Okay, I’ll take you to Venice.”

 

Charles smiles and leans to kiss Erik’s cheeks even if he’s driving.

 

“You take such good care of me.”

 

“I know,” Erik smirks as Charles’ teeth close around his earlobe to tease him.

 

When they get out of the car that Erik hastily parked in the middle of the courtyard, Charles proposes one last drink in the parlour. Erik doesn’t want to sleep just yet so he starts a fire in the chimney while Charles pours them two glasses of bourbon. They sit facing each other, Charles on the sofa, Erik on an armchair which he pulled close enough so that his lover could rest his feet on his legs. He’s stroking Charles’ bare ankle, savouring the bourbon.

 

“Where would you like to go?” Charles wonders, head heavily resting on his closed fist.

 

“I couldn’t care less, _mein Schatz_.”

 

“Erik…” he laughs, shaking his head, “We won’t travel because _I_ want to travel. Would you like to… I don’t know. Maybe visit historical sites? Egypt, maybe? Or do you prefer to enjoy an empty beach under the sunlight? I know! Hawaii?”

 

When Erik says that he couldn’t care less it’s because _he truly doesn’t care_. He already traveled a lot when he was still searching for Shaw and he never felt any pleasure when he admired a mountain covered with snow or a bucolic landscape. As long as he’s with Charles, everything else doesn’t really matter.

 

“Italy will be fine,” he says and slowly swirls the alcohol in his glass.

 

They stay silent for a while, Erik mesmerized by the flame in the chimney, Charles staring into space, slowly falling asleep. Erik’s fingers are still stroking the skin around his lover’s ankle with tenderness until Charles whispers:

 

“I’m glad we can do this.”

 

“Travel together?”

 

“No, I’m glad we can talk.”

 

“We do much more…” Erik grins.

 

“Darling, everything in my life isn’t about sex,” Charles winks at him. “You know what I mean…”

 

“I do. Speaking of which, Charles, I… Well, I miss you talking to me using your powers. I know you’re punishing me by not using them with me, because of the helmet and everything that happened after Cuba, but… It’s different between us, now, right?”

 

Charles stays immobile for a few seconds, with the glass resting on his lips, until he finally decides to empty it in heavy swallows.

 

“Sure, it’s definitely different.”

 

“It’s just that it’s so... “

 

 _Intimate_ , Erik wants to finish but it’s dangerous to confess how much he crave for intimacy, one that goes beyond lust and sexual pleasure. Too hard to admit it to himself.

 

“Were you speaking with Hank using your powers?” he suddenly wonders.

 

Charles arches an eyebrow, his face not expressing sadness, joy or anything remotely understandable, before asking:

 

“Are we going to talk about him?”

 

They look at each other, anchored in a silence Erik’s the only one able to break. He surrenders, shaking his head.

 

“Anyway. I miss it. And I think about it a lot.”

 

Charles deeply breathes in and nods. He rests the empty glass next to him on the sofa, leans his arm on the thick armrest and simply answers:

 

“Erik, I can’t use my powers anymore.”

 

Silence.

 

“It’s… Well, the serum, actually. It’s… blocking them. Or at least it prevents me from using them.”

 

Erik swallows. Once. He breathes in.

 

“You’re joking, right?”

 

“No, no it’s not a joke. We tried… I don’t even remember... seven? Or maybe eight different treatments, but they weren’t strong enough and they didn’t allow me to walk. Some of them made me really sick, you know… I’m perfectly fine with this one,” Charles sighs - _actually sighs_ \- as if he’s some kind of a rude teenager and it’s really something he shouldn’t have said.

 

“ _Perfectly_ _fine_?”

 

“Well, given the state in which you left me after what happened on that bloody beach, yes, I guess I can say I’m fine now,” he grins, unable to hold back such words in the face of Erik’s incredulity.

 

Erik’s heart stops to beat for one precious second.

 

 _It’s starting again_ . Inside of him, there’s this dark mechanism , made of teeth, nails and blood, so _much_ blood barely coagulated,  holding onto his guts and slowly climbing back up. It touches everything inside of him with its dirty fingers and  infects Erik’s body with a monstrous rage. It’s coming with an intensity so powerful it doesn’t seem possible to contain it.

 

“Are you saying you chose being able to walk over your powers?  Everything you are, everything you created, swept away… just for your fucking _legs_?” he simmers.

 

“Do you really think it’s just about my legs? For Christ’s Sake, Erik, where were you for the last ten years?” Charles sadly laughs. “Where were you when I sat for the first time on that damn wheelchair? I don’t remember seeing you around either when I met so many, _so many_ doctors, just to hear ‘ _We can’t fix you, Mr. Xavier, it’s permanent, we’re sorry, good luck anyway_ ’. How can you say that when you weren’t here when I couldn’t get down from the second floor when the generals came to take away the students, _kids_ , with them to that awful war. You’re not the one who lifted me up from the ground when I… when I felt so many times using the toilets like a bloody disabled piece of…” Charles nearly shouts before he breathes in and out to try to calm his nerves. “And all of this, all that… pain and suffering, it would have never happened if…”

 

Erik hastily stands up to knock his hands down on Charles’ sweater and forces him to face him. He’s holding him so close to his face that Charles’ feet are barely touching the ground.

 

“Don’t say it,” Erik threatens, shaking his head from right to left.

 

“It would have never happened if you hadn’t curbed the bullet,” Charles curtly carries on anyway, barely breathing between the words to be sure to say the venomous words out loud.

 

It’s automatic and Erik’s hands release him so that his right can heavily slap him in the face. Charles nearly falls due to the force of the impact and Erik finally realizes it; the strength at the tip of his fingers isn’t the one he has always known. He deeply feels it in his bones. He stares at the hands he used to inject the serum to himself and _fucking hell_...

 

“You made me take the serum… You made me take it,” he repeats with a voice as broken as his trust.

 

Charles stretches out his jaw and blinks several times, still a bit shocked. He retrieves his glass and he fills it with a generous amount of bourbon. He drinks in noisy swallows and put it on his cheek to use the cold to appease his red skin.

 

“So what, you made me take it for months...” Charles painfully sighs.

 

“Because you _asked_ me to. To _ease_ you. If I had known, I would have never…” he stops and stares at Charles. “You lied to me.”

 

His lover doesn’t respond this time. He looks away, still drinking the copper-coloured alcohol as if it is plain water.

 

“You lied to me and you keep lying to yourself. You shouldn’t have do that, Charles. _Gott_ I wish you hadn’t done that...”

 

Erik always desired Charles in so many ways: to know him, to understand him, to love him, to destroy him. Maybe not in that order but definitely with the same intensity. He clenches his fists and shivers as he _feels_ all the metal around him; the serum didn’t deteriorate his powers. If it did anything, it _increased_ them. Unless it’s because of the sting of betrayal raging in him. But he needs to master his anger before he makes the house fall on both of their bodies so he pushes Charles away and leaves the room. In the back pocket of his jeans, he can feel the car keys. Maybe it’s not a departure, maybe it’s an escape, but he just needs to get on that car and leave before he does something no serum in the world could heal. Behind him, Charles screams his name and runs until he stops in front of the front door, preventing Erik from leaving the mansion.

 

“Move away, Charles,” he threatens him with nothing but a cold stare.

 

“Stay,” it’s an order, a real one. The kind of sentence that would have made him go back to their bedroom if only Charles still had his powers. But it doesn’t work. Not anymore.

 

“ _Shut up_.”

 

“All right, all right! You want me to stop using the serum: I’ll stop using the serum. I’ll stop, I swear,” he begs and raises his hands to stroke Erik’s cheeks who pushes him against the door by gripping his neck.

 

He clenches his fingers around his throat and feels his pulse beating against his palm. Charles’ hands are scratching him but Erik was hardened by far worse torture in his life than this, so he ignores it. He’s so close to the face he kissed so many times that he can feel his breath hot and rare bouncing on his lips.

 

“Damn it, Charles, _you made me take it_ and you _lied to me_!” he screams again, his face against Charles’, not giving a fuck about the tears and the painfully husky voice.

 

“I will get off of it, I promise. Don’t leave me, _don’t leave me again_ . Stay here with me and I’ll stop using it. Please, Erik, I’m begging you. Please, please, _please_ …”

 

It’s just pathetic, the way Charles Xavier cries and loses his breath, promising bullshit. It makes Erik grin while releasing his neck to violently pushes him to the ground. Charles immediately arches his back, his hand reaching for his tail-bone. Erik straddles his chest. It’s not sexual, it’s everything but that. It’s a heavy and awful way to be sure he won’t move anymore.

 

“After all those years, you’re still so naïve, Charles. Do you really think you’ll get by fine, just because you’re helped by someone else? Get that into your head once and for all: _the only person you have to count on is yourself_.”

 

And Charles seems to understand what’s crossing Erik’s mind, as he opens his eyes wide and shakes his head. He states, as calmly as his shaky voice allows:

 

“Don’t do it, Erik.”

 

_‘I’m begging you, don’t do it.’_

 

It takes two seconds before Erik finally acts, as he has the impression Charles is able to pierce through his thoughts but the sensation is too faint and it’s too late anyway to back out. Because if Charles has to completely lose his legs to finally accept that he can’t live without his powers, then so be it.

 

Erik straightens up and Charles screams and begs under him. He uses the same words he used when they hold and love each other but Erik can’t understand them anymore. He turns him over, stomach and forehead against the wooden floor and calls to him one of the leg of the table in the main entrance which falls down, making an impossible racket in the room. He looks at Charles’ pelvis, the bottom of his spine, already marked by a scar Erik won’t ever be able to forget the shape. His shirt slowly raises as Charles is trying to crawl off of Erik’s grip who raises his arm, aiming.

 

* * *

 

 

Hank couldn’t be happier. Mrs. Stenvenson is quite certain he’ll be at the top of his class if his last exam goes as well as the previous one. It’s only possible because he loves what he does. He doesn’t mind spending sunny weekends sitting in the school’s laboratory, as he is certain that he’ll keep discovering new things. Warren spends most of his time with him. They argue, sometimes, passionate as they are, but they always end up in hysterical laughters and make up with a beer in their hand. The fact that Dani tells him he’s brilliant, every time a professor gives them back their assignment, also helps a lot. He’ll meet with her at two this afternoon and for once, he’d prefer not to be late. He always gets lost in his books and it makes her wait for him at least thirty minutes every time. For now, she says she finds it cute but he’s quite sure it’s the kind of things that could piss her off one day. They’re not officially dating - they haven’t even kissed yet - but Hank wants to do it right, for once, so things don’t go as they did with Raven.

 

He closes the book he is reading and walks to the bathroom to wash his hands.

 

“Where are you taking her?” Tonio asks, tying the lace of his sports shoes.

 

“To the movie.”

 

“To see what?”

 

“ _Lenny_ , with Dustin Hoffman.”

 

“Ah. You know, _The Texas Chain Saw Massacre_ is out.”

 

“I want to seduce her, not traumatize her.”

 

Tonio laughs and concedes that Hank’sidea is better indeed. They get out of their room at the same time. When they walk in front of the mailbox, they’re talking about the exams and Tonio shows to Hank a letter with his name on it. He checks his watch and asks him to leave it in the mailbox as he doesn’t have time to read it, not if he wants to be on time for his date. They salute each other and Hank starts to run to catch the bus.

 

He arrives only seven minutes late and Dani fakes her disappointment. It makes them laugh while they buy some popcorn. They sit in the theater and comment the adverts, Dani leaning on Hank who kept the box on his knees. She has a sense of humor so fine that sometimes he doesn’t quite understands her. It’s weird to be ‘ _brilliant’_ when it comes to genetics but be undeniably clueless when it comes to hitting on a woman. Hank knows, literally, what she’s made of, he should then know the right words to seduce her, but it’s a bit more complicated than expected. There are no existing research on the subject to guide him, unfortunately.

 

They eat together that night and he walks her to the place she’s renting with Stephanie and another friend he never met. They talk about the movie and swear to each other that they should do it again, soon. And as he doesn’t know if he should kiss her right or left cheek, and as she’s _looking_ at him, he makes his move and slowly kisses her lips. The kiss is chaste for a few seconds before she puts her hand on his chest and their tongue finally touch each other.

 

The following days are devoted to the end-of-term examination. When the group meets, it’s to study around a pizza. The stress level is rising, it’s the home stretch. It’s only the end of the first semester but there are only a few spots and too many of them vying for one, they all know it. Hank doesn’t see Dani outside their study group meetings but it’s not bothering them yet, as focused as they are. The week goes both too slowly and too quickly. Hank is exhausted, really. He’s not the only one and they’re all talking about taking holidays together, near the Great Lakes. It’s setting up.

 

On the friday night,Warren is the last one to exit the lecture theater, they directly go to the discotheque and, without drinking a drop of alcohol, they all end up on the dancefloor. Dani with Hank, Stephanie with Tonio and Warren. James tries to hit on a freshman who pulls him back into line. Hank wants to kiss Dani all night long, but it’s not the right moment. Instead, they look at each other in a way nobody else could understand them and they stroke each other’s hands in the darkness. It’s not much, but it’s good enough.

 

When they’re back to the residence, Tonio proposes they all go back to their room to have one last drink, even if there’s not much space. The girls say yes and that’s a first.

 

“We could have tidied up our room.”

 

“It’s alright, Hank,” Tonio smiles, resting his arm around Hank’s shoulders.

 

“Your socks are still drying up on the radiator.”

 

“... Well, okay, you’ll create a diversion while I’ll hide them.”

 

Hank laughs and stops in front of the mailbox with his roommate. Tonio digs the key in the lock and open the small door. He takes out two envelops and gives the third to Hank.

 

“You still haven’t opened it?”

 

“Ah, no, I forgot about it. Since when is it here?”

 

“I don’t know, a few days.”

 

Hank nods and recognizes the stamp. He smiles, surprised to receive news from Westchester and quickly opens the letter. There’re only two sentences and a signature he never forgot.

 

_Hank, I need you. Come back to the mansion._

_-Charles Xavier_

 

He heavily swallows and feels dizzy. It’s been a _few days_ that the letter is here and he didn’t read it before and _what the hell is going on_? He folds the letter, opens it and reads it again, and hears Warren’s voice calling him:

 

“Hank? Are you okay?”

 

“I need to go there,” he decrees.

 

“Where?”

 

“Who has a car?”

 

They all look at him, confused with his change of mood but he doesn’t have one second to lose.

 

“Who has a fucking car?” he shouts and this time, Stephanie moves forward.

 

“Where do you want to go?”

 

“Westchester.”

 

“That’s at least a six-hour drive, I won’t leave you to drive in this state alone.”

 

Hank wants to ask _What state?_ but he puts his hand on his forehead and feels it sweaty and warm. His heart pounds harder and harder, thank God he took his serum this morning otherwise he’s sure he would be transforming into the Beast right now, in front of everyone.

 

“I’m coming with you,” Warren says and it doesn’t seem negotiable.

 

“Let’s take my car,” Stephanie adds, nodding.

 

She says she’ll meet them in fifteen minutes in front of the main fountain in the park, time for Hank to prepare his bag. Tonio constantly asks him what’s going on ( _Hank doesn’t know_ ), if he can help ( _Hank would like it to be the case_ ) and what Hank can only answers is: _I need to go_. When he exits his room and sees Dani waiting for him, it takes him a few seconds to understand she’s coming with them too.

  
The four of them end up in a small car with a noisy motor and no one dare to talk. Hank thinks about one thing only : he has to go back home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Note:** Oh my. Thank you for the last kudos/comments. This is so motivating and utterly inspiring, guys!  


**Beta:** the always so wonderful **deadoralive0013**. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

* * *

 

 

If Hank was able to sleep, he is sure his dreams would sink into the sky above his head, not only dark anymore but muddled with swirls of colors between grey and dirty blue. The Ford’s motor is shuddering; not Hank. He’s seated on the passenger side while Stephanie is driving. He doesn’t rest his back against the chair and screws his eyes behind his glasses to watch the road in the twilight. He guides her, tells her when she has to turn right or left and they don’t talk more than that. Dani and Warren discuss, sometimes, but Hank can’t really hear their words well. Nor does he really care. They’re all so very respectful, and Hank will thank them later, when he is sure that Charles is okay. He sees the small path between the pines and asks Stephanie to take it. His hand is already on the door while the car slows down. When the distinctive sound of the gravel being rolled on reaches his ears, he knows he’s back home.

 

“Stop here.”

 

He gets out of the car and runs. The front door isn’t locked, it’s a good and the worst news there is, at the same time. There’s not a single light on and the atmosphere is coldly feverish. The shape of the furnitures are thrown into relief thanks to the last moon beam. On the center of the entrance, the table is pathetically smashed on the ground. It’s missing a foot and the trinkets which were on it are now broken. 

 

“ _ Professor? _ ”

 

He climbs the stairs, opens the door of his bedroom but it’s empty and the bed is unmade.  _ No, no, no _ . 

 

“ _ Professor Xavier! _ ” he screams, torn between the hallway in which he wants his voice to carry and the bedroom where he wants to see Charles settled, asleep, safe and sound. He comes back to the staircase and sees his friends waiting for him. “Search the second floor. Stephanie, search the first floor.”

 

They nod and start to run. He shouts Xavier’s name and he hears the others echo Charles’ name below . They don’t know the professor, never met him, but he’s the only one here. Hank can smell it, the German’s scent is gone, definitely. What he doesn’t immediately realize is that the professor’s smell barely overtakes the dust. He opens the door of every bathrooms, bedrooms, libraries, Charles’ office. Nothing. Hank doesn’t quite know at which point his heart will definitely break.

 

They finally all meet downstairs again and all apologize with their eyes. Hank passes his hands on his face, under his glasses, and thinks. Charles asked him to come back, he told him he needed him, why would he…

 

“Oh my God…” Hank understands, opening his eyes and this time he gets out of the house. 

 

He runs through the park to the building below and the door is open. It’s been months since he came here and it’s strange to get close again to what used to be his sanctuary, with a desire to never see what’s inside of it. He pushes the door, almost throws up when the chemical smells hit his nostrils and looks at the mess. The tables have been knocked over, the scattered shards of glass on which he’s walking comes from the vial in which he used to contain his experiences, his discoveries. The past ten years of his life. He climbs above a bookcase now laying on the ground and almost collapse in his turn, just for a second, before something sets off in him, making him run again.

 

“Charles _.. _ .”

 

It’s  _ him _ , laying with his face pressed on the ground, it’s his body. Unmoving. Hank slowly turns him and pulls a face when he sees the vomit at the corners of the professor’s mouth. He wipes it with his sleeve and holds Charles in his arms. He leans down to the half-parted lips and feels a small breath of air. He puts his hand on his neck to find a fragile pulse. Charles is alive. He lifts him up and carries him. He gets out of the laboratory and goes back to their home, skimmed by the first sunbeams. Warren, Dani and Stephanie are waiting for him on the front steps.

 

“Dani, in the first living-room, on your left after the lobby, there’s a small marble table. On it, you’ll find a blue notebook. Search for Doctor Kurtis at the letter D. Tell him Charles Xavier is unconscious and that he needs to come right away.” 

 

She stares at Charles’ motionless body before nodding and she runs. 

 

“Do you need help carrying him?” Warren asks because Hank’s arms are shivering.

 

“No.”

 

He climbs the stairs, crosses the hallway and puts Charles on his bed. He takes of the bedcovers, makes sure his head is supported enough by the two pillows he piled and goes to the bathroom. He takes a basin, a washcloth. When he’s back, Stephanie is waiting in the doorway, chewing her bottom lip.

 

“Is he going to be okay… ?” she asks.

 

“Yes.”

 

Hank refuses to even consider thinking about the contrary. Hank lifts up his sleeves and soaks the washcloth, looking at the professor’s soiled face. Stephanie tells him she’ll wait downstairs and Hank waits for her to close the door before he leans to whisper:

 

“Everything's going to be okay, Charles.” 

 

He quickly wrings the washcloth above the basin and wipes it around Charles’ mouth. His movements are precise and delicate. It’s somehow between a reflex, as if he did this all his life or that his life had prepared him for this moment, and the nerve-racking and wobbly discovery. He cleans the jaw, the neck, and looks at the shirt soaked with puke and chemicals. He sighs and turns around to look at the mess, trying to locate a loose pair of pants and a sweatshirt not too creased. He slowly undresses Charles, repeating the familiar task he has not done since Charles last used his wheelchair. He puts the dirty clothes in the bathtub and stands close to the headboard, watching Charles who seems so sad even if he’s not conscious. There’s a knock on the door and this time, it’s Dani who enters.

 

“The doctor will be here in forty-five minutes.”

 

“Thank you,” he slightly smiles.

 

She smiles back at him and discreetly looks around the room, the bed, Charles. Hank nods to tell her she can enter so she dares to put a foot forward . She moves, avoiding the clothes, the book and the chess pieces scattered on the floor and stops when she’s a few centimeters away from Hank. They don’t talk. 

 

* * *

 

 

Doctor Kurtis’ car pulls away and Hank leaves the front steps. He hears the sound of the television and goes to see his friends whom he told to get settled in the living-room. They’re continuously asking what they can do to help him or his friend, but they all just need to wait right now. He enters the room and they turn around to look at him:

 

“So… ?”

 

“The doctor examined him. He doesn’t have any signs of a fall or any attack. The gas in the laboratory probably knocked him out but he should wake up during the next twenty-four hours.”

 

“Should he go to the hospital?” Stephanie worries about. 

 

“Fortunately, there is no need for that.” 

 

They smile, reassured, and tell him to watch some telly with them but he dodges the invitation by saying that he will be preparing their rooms. Once he put the clean sheets on the beds, he goes back to Charles’ bedroom. He’s now under a thick blanket, his arms along with his body. Hank takes his place on the same armchair in which he spent nights keeping a close watch on Charles after the umpteenth drunken night and rests his elbows on his knees, leaning forward.

 

“I’m here, Charles.” 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s warm enough outside so Hank could open the windows in Charles’ bedroom. It’s barely three o’clock in the afternoon and Warren is at the park, reading a book with Dani sitting next to him, Hank can see them from where he stands. He didn’t sleep last night but the adrenaline helps him hold on as if rest has never been important in his life. He was soon joined by Stephanie and they write the grocery list while he sits on the window ledge. 

 

“Vegetables, okay… What else? Beers?”

 

“No alcohol,” Hank orders.

 

“... Noted. Does your friend need medicines?” 

 

“That’s okay, the doctor already brought everything he needs. Thank you.”

 

She smiles and leaves the room, saluting him with her thin fingers. He turns around once she closes the door and gazes at the park. The renovation works are over and the contrast between the magnificent exterior and the devastation inside is just sad. Erik’s not here anymore, that’s a given.  The chaos that greeted them has his name written all over it . Hank has started to clean up, helped by the other students, but he wasn’t able to go back to his laboratory, it’s too painful to see. Warren went, with a tissue on his face, to open the windows. 

 

In front of Charles’ bedroom windows, he deeply breathes in and turns around. Charles’ head is slightly facing him. His eyes are opened.

 

“Charles!” he exclaims before realizing he might have spoken a bit too loud.

 

He gets closer to the bed, sits on his armchair before resting his hand on Charles’ who is not blinking but succeeds in smiling.

 

“So… may I know why are you skipping school?” 

 

Hank frowns one second before he bursts out laughing. The words  _ ‘I’m sorry’ _ and  _ ‘I’m here’,  Charles, _ ’ are fighting to come out in his head without him succeeding in choosing one. 

 

“Who was this girl talking about vegetables? Your girlfriend?”

 

“No, no, it’s Stephanie, a... She’s a friend I met at the university. She came with me when I received your letter. Two other friends are here too, Warren and Dani. I’ll introduce them to you later.”

 

Charles’ lips lightly pinches and his eyes doesn’t seem to be able to close, even if they’re red.

 

“My letter… ?”

“You sent me a letter asking me to come here,” Hank explains.

 

This time, the professor’s eyes close several times before he turns his head to face the ceiling. His voice weakens.

 

“I don’t remember…”

 

He laboriously puts his hand on his temple and Hank holds the one that didn’t move. 

 

“It’s okay…”

 

“My head hurts so much…” he whines.

 

Hank takes out a pill from an orange box and gives it to Charles along with a glass of water.

 

“Doctor Kurtis came yesterday, he said this  was likely to happen…”

 

Charles puts the pill on his tongue and swallows it. He rests his back against his pillow again and sighs, exhausted by the simple act of straightening up to drink his medicine. He doesn’t speak and seems to have already fallen asleep, so Hank stands up but Charles suddenly, desperately clenches his fingers around Hank’s arm.

 

“... I just want to move the blanket up on you,” Hank reassures him to make him understand that he won’t leave.

 

Charles nods with difficulty. He lets Hank adjust his blanket and doesn’t take back his hand from his, even if his fingers are absent-mindedly pointing to the scientist. They don’t speak for at least five minutes before Charles dares to ask:

 

“Is there anyone else than your friends and us, here?”

 

Hank scrutinizes the tired face, then closed his eyes. It’ll be easier to confess if he doesn’t confront his gaze.

 

“No.”

 

Charles breathes in. When he falls asleep, his face reflexively turns by to his right, towards the armchair that still carries the faint smell of the German. Hank sleeps on his own armchair next to Charles that night. 

 

* * *

 

 

Settled in the dining-room, they’re playing  _ Chicago _ when Dani brings back some tea from the kitchen. Stephanie gets up to answer the ringing phone but she comes back quickly as the person who called hang up and Warren is thinking out loud which tactic would be best to move his  _ Thief  _ piece. Dani takes advantage while Stephanie is trying to help (or confuse) Warren, to fix Hank with her brown eyes. They haven’t talked since they arrived five days ago. Hank spends most of his time with Charles, bringing him food or keeping a close watch on his headaches. Dani seems to understand or at least she respects that. She and the others  don’t come up to the second floor, staying away from Charles’ bedroom where he’s regaining his strength. They don’t ask a single question about the house, about Charles, nor about the state in which they found everything. Hank is very grateful about that as he doesn’t know how he could explain something he doesn’t even understand.

 

Stephanie suddenly exclaims she found the perfect getaway which makes them all laugh. They stop when they hear the sound of the door opening behind them and turn around to see Charles coming in. He awkwardly holds on the doorframe with one hand and with a cane in the other. Hank hasn’t seen that vision since a long time. 

 

“Goodmorning…” he dimly smiles. 

 

“Good morning sir,” they answer, standing up.

 

They hesitate from shaking his hand, not wanting to bother him, but he shifts his cane from his right hand to his left to stretch it to them. Only Hank doesn’t stand up as they already saw each other earlier.

 

“So you’re the ones I have to thank for allowing Hank to come back here?”

 

“Ah, don’t mention it, sir,” Dani smiles.

 

“Are you feeling better?” Stephanie asks while Warren pulls a chair to help him sit down.

 

“Yes, thank you very much. But I don’t want to bother you while you’re playing, I just wanted to greet you before going to my office.”

 

“Stay with us! We bought this game in New Rochelle, it’s quite fun!”

 

Charles still hesitates but they all insist so he agrees and sits at the end of the table, next to Hank who looks at him, delighted. He doesn’t even have to open his lips, his friends are already doing their utmost to explain the rules to the professor. Charles seems to already settle and accepts the tea Dani is offering him. He stretches out his legs and his feet rest against Hank’s. They smile at each other. 

 

* * *

 

 

They eat together that night. Warren is the one cooking, surprising everyone. He proposed to do so because Stephanie and Dani are talking with Charles, who listens to them with his very own fervor, taken up in a passionate debate. They tell him about her studies, about how difficult it is to be a woman in the scientific world and he hangs on to their words, is angered with them and allows himself to give them a few advice which are - as always - so pertinent. Dani is beautiful tonight. She let her dark hair fall on her shoulders and her eyes full of mischief are fixed on Charles with an admiration that seems to increase with every second . Hank knows that feeling.

 

He doesn’t talk much. It’s quite calming to see the professor speak with other people and to hear his laughter, even if it’s discreet. Even the fact that he has to use his cane to walk isn’t enough to sadden them. 

 

There’s no serum in the house anymore. Hank searched through every drawers, every office. He manages to spend half an hour in his laboratory last time, but Erik destroyed everything - that may have something to do with the serum or not. He doesn’t quite know what happened (Charles and him don’t talk about it) but he has a feeling that everything happened because of the serum. Maybe Charles finally told him. Or maybe Erik figured it out. 

 

Most of his tools are broken now. Hank doesn’t even know if he could create a new treatment for Charles. Or for himself. To be honest, it doesn’t even cross his mind. 

They’re all going to sleep and Hank accompanies Charles to his bedroom, standing behind him in the stairs to be sure he won’t stumble. In front of the door he wishes him a good night and tells Charles that he can call him if he needs anything. Before he goes back downstairs, Charles’ hand holds his forearm.

 

“Hank…”

 

He stagger a bit and gets closer to have better support. This close to each other, Charles’ smell, a musky mix of Cologne and the signature of his skin, comes back again to beset Hank’s mind like an old counting rhyme one can't really ever forget. 

 

“I… Well…” he closes one eye, smiles and pursues, lower, “it's quite painful. Please.”

 

That's all. He doesn't say anything else. He looks at Hank and counts on his pout and his pleading eyes to express the rest. Hank answers, voice as calm as it is strong:

 

“There’s no serum left. And I won’t make it anymore.”

 

Charles breathes in for a long time and nods. He still waits a few seconds and addresses him a wide smile before releasing his arm. 

 

“Of course, I understand.”

 

“... Do you want me to stay ?” Hank offers.

 

Charles’ eyes scream  _ Yes _ . 

 

“No,” he lies.

Hank still waits a bit because Charles doesn’t enter his bedroom. It’s not a matter of pride, but he wants Charles to say so if he feels like he needs some support. Not a serum, but help. Charles smiles again and wishes him a good night before closing the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

The calm doesn’t last three full days. Charles didn’t come out of his bedroom today and Hank comes to see if he is okay. The professor is still laying on his bed, even if he is dressed. He’s hiding his face in the hollow of his elbow and he’s gripping the blanket under him. He has convulsions coming from his pelvis, making him jump, whining. Hank gets closer to hand him his medicines but Charles barely opens an eye and violently pushes his hand away.

 

“It doesn’t do anything!” he barks, trying to get up.

 

Hank leans forward to help him but Charles rejects him again. His movements are violent but they don’t belong to him; it’s the pain talking. 

 

“Help me, Hank…” he begs, his legs dangling from the bed, his fingers rubbing his face with a detestable strength. 

 

Hank breathes in and this time takes his place on the armchair that doesn’t move from the left side of the bed anymore. He sees Charles’ state getting worse and worse every day. His body is beaten by withdrawal and the pain on his back is settling unavoidably. They still didn’t talk about Erik, neither about what happened when Hank was away. He doesn’t feel the need to. On Charles’ forearms there are too many marks of needles that someone sank in his skin. It’s really not something Charles Xavier deserves. 

 

“That’s what I’m doing,” Hank answers with a neutral voice.

 

“No!  _ No _ , you’re letting me suffer like a  _ dog _ ! Do something…” the professor moans with a husky voice.

 

“What do you want me to do?”

 

“You know perfectly well what I need!” 

Charles seems to think he won this time because he raises his face -red for having abused it too much- and stares at Hank who can’t do anything else but shake his head. There won’t be any treatment again. It went too far and it’s what nearly killed Charles. But it’s not something Charles must even be aware of as his lips pinch before his gaze becomes more determined. He leans forward and smoothly puts his hands on Hank’s thigh, so high the younger man feels a strange echo through his whole body.

 

“I’ll give you anything you want, Hank. I’m begging you. One last serum, the last…”

 

They look at each other and there’s the word  _ anything _ floating around them. Maybe it’s a promise. Maybe it’s a curse. But nothing will make Hank change his mind. Deep inside of him there’s the incurable regret of already having seen, months ago, Charles in withdrawal and to having fooled himself in the intoxicating feeling of being   the one who could actually help him. It’s that night when everything was muddled up and when Erik made him understand what Hank would have prefered to never happen between Charles and the German. But it wasn’t the most tragic event, of course. What has been the most despicable thing that happened that night was the way Hank, frightened by his own feelings, chose to run and leave Charles behind. Even if he needed his help. His presence.

 

He silently swallows his guilt  that he knows will erode him for the next few years and very slowly pulls himself out of Charles’ grip. He retrieves on the ground the three pills that fell when the professor pushed him away and holds them out again. Charles whines and turns his back, hiding under the blanket.

 

Hank stays by his bedside all night. He keeps a close watch on the convulsions and the temperature. 

 

It’s nearly three in the morning when Charles finally sits up straight to take the pills and  swallows them without even a bit of water.

 

It won’t be enough to calm the craving and the pain but that’s a start.

 

* * *

 

Days are passing by and without talking about it , Warren, Dani and Stephanie continues to stay at the Xavier house. It’s not what they had planned for their holidays but that’s where they are spending it nonetheless. Charles spends more and more of his time with them. He ended up telling him that he used to be a professor - without mentioning his powers. Now they take at least one hour of his day to ask him questions about their studies and life in general. It’s quite amazing to see how Charles Xavier adapt himself to each person he’s talking to, how he understands even the human being who’s most unlike him - might the difference be in his education or in his ideas. His powers still aren’t back. Hank and him tried a few exercises but it never worked. It’s only Charles’ altruism that pushes him to help the other students. Hank also thinks that the conversations and filling up the professor’s shoes, even for them who aren’t really his students, are welcomed distractions from what he is going through.

 

With Hank, it’s different, he is not particularly loquacious with his former student. He spends most of his time looking at him. At first, Hank feels like Charles is observing him as he has no idea what’s going through the professor’s mind. And then, there’s a shy smile which bit by bit appears on Charles’ lips every time they spend time together. They always sit next to each other when they have dinner. Hank’s still the one who walks with him to his bedroom. And when they have a walk in the gardens and they take a break, Charles doesn’t only lean on the scientist’s arm. If the others are a few meters ahead of them or if they’re looking at the antenna down the park, Charles rests his head against Hank’s shoulder. He always withdraws before they turn around.

 

Hank doesn’t mind. Hank even incites it one day. 

 

It starts when they’re eating one night in the gigantic dining room. Warren is talking about one of the books he borrowed from Charles and the women are fascinated by the way he talks about it. At the corner of his eyes, Hank notices Charles is pulling a face. He knows the professor prefers to have his legs up to calm the pain in his back. Slowly, he stretches out a hand under the table and gently pulls on Charles’ ankles to rest them on his knees. It’s discreet, no one even pays attention to it. Charles doesn’t meet his gaze but he doesn’t move his legs either. 

 

Then there’s this thursday afternoon when Hank and his friends are back from New Rochelle where they did the grocery shopping. There’s a storm outside so they empty the car truck as quickly as possible, between Warren’s whinings of “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck! _ ” and Stephanie’s hysterical laughters. Charles is on the front step, his voice encouraging them through the wind and rain. When Hank takes out the last brown bag with him and runs to the house, he stops in front of Charles to smile at him. The rest of them is already inside, taking off their soaked coats and shoes so he dares to lifts his hand and gently stroke Charles’ neck to tell him to enter in his turn. 

 

“Don’t catch a cold,” he whispers and that makes Charles smile.

 

It’s mainly innocent. Until it’s not.

 

When it happens, Hank is still too naive to have protected himself from it. It's late that night, as they played cards and spoke around glasses of wine neither Hank nor Charles touched. Warren dared to talk of the difficult years he had in high school for the first time, specifically about the bullying he had to face. Dani spoke about the daily racist remarks she has to endure because of the color of her skin. She mentioned silly words and a lot of stupid people. One aggression she didn't want to talk about. Stephanie told them she hated the studies she's been following for years. She doesn't care at all about genetics but she had to choose something as her parents assured her that 'Dancing is not a real job'. It could have been a sad night but it never became so. Because they all listened to each other and they shared enough personal scars to create this link between them, as silent it as solid, that they know they couldn't find anywhere else. Summer at the Xavier mansion heal the most injured one. 

 

They all went to bed now and Hank is reading on the sofa, a detective novel he started on Monday. Charles is laying next to him, back against the thick armrest. His legs doesn't respond to him as much as they did yesterday and the day before. They seem heavier than before. One has to really know Charles Xavier to know how much he suffers, hiding between his smiles and Hank knows him very well. He's not doing anything special right now and it automatically occurs to Hank that he might have fallen asleep.The impression fades away when he sees, at the corner of his eyes, the professor's body getting closer to him. Hank turns his head and looks at Charles' face, now closer than he would have thought. He wants to ask if everything's all right but there's a fragility in Charles' gaze that prevents him from speaking.

 

Charles breathes in and looks at Hank's body as if he was seeing it for the first time. He inspects every joints, the skin of his forearms and his manly hands holding the book - which is already forgotten. He has to use his own hands to pull his thighs up to straddle Hank who puts the book on the sofa next to them, losing the page he was reading. An arm on the armrest, the other on his side, he doesn't touch Charles. Instead he returns his gaze which already requires a lot of courage.

 

Its immediate, he thinks about that night when Erik and him were both lost and magnetized by Charles. He buried it inside of him all this time and to finally see, so close to him, his friend's chest rising at each breath reminds him of the sensation of his skin under his palm. Undeniably, Hank remembers that second, that only second when his whole body had wanted to stay against Charles', for ever.

 

Charles is still looking at him and without saying anything he raises his hands to take Hank's glasses off his face. It doesn't bother him as he can still clearly see  the professor's face, every line and freckle, as well as the flushed color rising on his cheeks. Charles leans and gently rests their foreheads one against the other. He barely opens his lips and by feeling his breath against his, Hank can only act the same. His heart isn't beating particularly strong. Everything is as it has always been, maybe softer. Charles' hands lands on his chest and slowly come up to his neck to have a small grip on it. Hank closes his eyes when he understands Charles is literally hanging on him and this time he doesn't stop his arms from hugging against him the body which is every day regaining a bit more of warmth but loses strength. 

 

He rests his hands under Charles' bottom and lifts him. He has never carried him that way - face to face, his legs around him - but it seems as natural as putting a foot in front of the other. He checks the hallway is empty and walks to the second floor. In Charles' bedroom, the lights are already on. He sits on the bed and doesn't think about what is going to happen. He lets himself be guided by his desires, by Charles'. Unless it's a matter of need. Charles starts to take off his clothes but he has trouble taking off his pants as he can’t even bend forward. Sitting by his side, Hank helps him. He strips his legs and folds the jeans before he puts it next to them. Hank often accompanies Charles when he has trouble getting into his pajamas, it's almost a night as any other, in the end. Except Charles, only wearing his boxers, doesn't take it out from under his pillow and simply looks at Hank. He leans again and strokes Hank's cheeks. He doesn't kiss him yet because what's adorning the lips in front of him is a smile that personifies all the delicacy which is bringing Charles Xavier to life and Hank wants to continue to see this marvel.

 

This desire he has in him didn't have any plan to go with it. It wasn’t love at first sight and wasn’t predicted. But the years spent next to Charles Xavier brought to Hank’s life something he knows he won’t find elsewhere. More than the age difference, the most astonishing part is the fact that he’s a man and Hank usually only dreams of putting his hands on feminine curves. But Charles is an exception to the rule. Charles is both the question and the answer. Charles is everything.

 

He delicately takes his hand in his and press their palms together. Hank lets him do so and looks at the gesture. The professor’s fingers are sliding against his and here he is, contemplating the size of their hands. Hank’s a Beast; he smiles when he notices how small Charles’ fingers are compared to his. It doesn’t prevent Charles from gripping them to pull them to him, closer, and closer again until he rests Hank’s hand on his own naked chest. 

 

And Hank only wants to ask for his forgiveness.

 

Because Hank doesn’t move anymore and his eyes, utterly  _ stunning _ tonight, are losing their sparkle. He blinks twice, gaze fixed on the repeating gesture. He breathes in through his nose and ends up turning his head to the armchair on the right side of his bed, the one where Erik was sitting that awful night. Then he barely whispers, with a broken voice:

 

“I remember…”

 

And something dies in Hank. The illusion that that night, when Erik forced Hank to touch him, never existed. That no feelings, other than friendship which are linking him to Charles, prevented him from withdrawing his fingers from the unconscious body. Hope that Charles never loved Erik that much.

 

Maybe Hank basked in the uncertainty  of what could have happened that night, if Charles knew it was his hand that touch him. But today there’s no doubt anymore that their lips are so close and yet they are so far away from each other. They both know Erik is still deeply anchored in Charles’ mind, as they know it’s only his body which could love the professor’s.

Charles blinks again and releases Hank’s hand who automatically leans to take him in his arms. He tightens his embrace, holds him close. The kisses on his forehead are the whispered proofs of all the kindness and hushed love he feels for him. Charles doesn’t have any more strength left, he seems so sad and empty, it’s only the tears that are running on his cheeks which are making him shiver. But that’s okay because Hank is here and holds him with even more tenderness. He’ll be strong for both of them. He feels against his own chest the professor’s ribcage sinking  and rising  back but Charles doesn’t make a sound. Then, when the tears are quietly calming, Hank gently puts him in his bed. Charles lays down on his right side and his hand rests at the exact spot where Erik slept, so many -and yet, so little- nights before. 

Hank stays by his side, a hand stroking his back, even if Charles doesn’t feel it. 

 

When Charles is asleep, Hank gets up and removes the empty pillows on which the German’s smell still lingers. No matter how feeble, it is still there. He takes the armchair out of the room from the right side of the bed.

  
Some love fade away. Not Hank’s. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Note:** Well, well, well. Truth is that I _had_ to add new scenes to this story, so there'll be an epilog comin along in a few days. I'll write my "thank you" note then. (Spoilers alert: I'm going to be very emotional about publishing the last chapter!)  


**Beta** : The amazing  **deadoralive0013.** This story wouldn't be published without her so let's all give her the biggest hug ever <3

* * *

 

In Westchester, summer comes and goes  with as much laziness. Hank is not in a rush to meet again with the autumn coldness and the dead leaves which are invading the park each year. It was true before, when Charles couldn't care less about his home but this year, Hank is sure they'll hire a gardener. 

 

_ They _ . Him and Charles. 

 

Because even if Tonio sent the students' mail to the Xavier mansion, Hank didn't reveal to Charles what the letter, sent to him from Mr. Salvatore, said. Charles is slowly losing the use of his legs so they have enough things to worry about as it is. Dani was with him when they opened the envelopes. She kissed his left cheek and showed more enthusiasm than he did when she read:  _ Henry McCoy, top of the class _ . Of course he's very proud but the choice is already made and he answered Mr. Salvatore that he thanked him for everything but he won't finish his master’s degree. It's not only Charles' state that made him take this decision. This semester has been extraordinary, he met amazing people and having the chance to evolve in an academic environment reminded him how much he missed it. But he spent too many hours reading books he already knew by heart and waiting for the end of the class to ask questions to his professors - to which they often didn't have an answer to give him. Maybe Charles Xavier is right. Maybe Hank is really gifted.  _ Too gifted _ .

 

His friends will leave next Monday. They're all sad to do so but Warren wants to go see his parents and Stephanie wants to spend some time with Tonio. She didn't pass her exams and told them she wasn't surprised - even relieved. She now wants to focus on a dancing career and Hank found in Charles' office a brochure of a dancing school in New York which could interest her. He goes searching for her in the winter garden, as he heard voices, but she's not there. He sees Charles, sitting in his wicker chair with Dani and Warren facing him. Warren's eyes are red and he is massaging his fist while Charles is holding Dani's hand. Hank looks at them and asks right away:

 

"What's going on?"

 

"Nothing..." Warren snaps , practically jumping out of his chair to leave the room.

 

"Warren," Charles calls with a firm voice.

 

The young man immediately stops and turns around to look at the professor who reassures him with a simple look.

 

"Hank too."

 

That's all, he doesn't say anything else and it seems to surprise Warren and Dani deep in their souls. Warren moves backward and Hank understands only one second before Charles confirms out loud:

 

"Hank, your best friends Dani Moonstar and Warren Worthington are mutants too. I’m both amazed and stunned that you never realized it before!” Charles heartily laughs.

 

“Holy shit, guys, you’re keeping your cards close to your chest. You should have told me...” Hank laughs, as startled as he’s genuinely happy to learn there are other mutants, of his age, who didn’t die in Vietnam.

 

“In my defense, it’s not something I’m particularly proud of…” Warren apologizes, looking at his feet. 

 

Hank opens his lips but closes them right away, smiling, because he knows they’re standing in the room where there’s the only man on Earth who could explain with a brilliant facility why it should be a pride to be born mutant. 

 

“Well, that’s sad to hear…” Charles smiles.

 

He retrieves his cane and slowly rises up. He gets closer to put his hand on Warren’s shoulder to hold his attention and to hold himself, and starts again:

 

“You know, this place isn’t just my home. It’s way too big for me and I’m not _ that _ megalomaniac. Approximately ten years ago, I founded a school here,  _ Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngster _ . Oh, it wasn’t a place for students particularly gifted with mathematics or languages; it was for the young mutants who weren’t aware of their capabilities. I travelled across the United States to find young people like you. That’s how I met Hank, by the way. Then word of mouth did the rest and one day there were, in this mansion, more than sixty teenagers and young adults who were running all around. It’s not only an expression, they were literally running, it was quite… noisy,” Charles says with a fond, contemplative smile. 

 

“It was hard work but do you know what was pushing me to keep holding the whole thing together? It was the way those young fellows were fighting for their rights, to be treated the way everyone of us should be treated,  _ like a person _ . You, me, and Hank, we’re all people. Look at what is happening currently in our country. Black people, persons of color, the minorities… the  _ oppressed _ . They’re all rising, are joining forces, for what? For egality. So yes, mutants are different from the humans, and men are different from women, and so on, and it would be stupid to try to prove the contrary. But it doesn’t mean that we are not all equal. If I fought all those years, Warren, it’s precisely so that never again a young mutant would say that ‘ _ it’s not something he’s particularly proud of _ ’. You’re born this way, you’re different yet… you’re not. You’re a unique being.”

 

Warren frowns. His lips open, trying to find words that won’t come out and it’s finally Dany who asks:

 

“Why did you close the school then?”

 

Hank discreetly observes Charles’ reaction which is nothing more than a sad smile. 

 

“Because I was selfish. For all our abilities and abnormalities that scare the humans and make them hate us, we are not immune to these moments of weakness that knock us all down at some point in our lives. It was a mistake and I can’t even blame… the war or anything else. You have to know, military generals used to come here several times for a year, to enlist the young mutants. Sometimes, they took them away by groups of ten. I was in a wheelchair back then and I shouted at them, the first time, trying to stop them from taking the students. I failed. The second time, I didn’t even come out of my bedroom. In my own house, something which went against my principles was happening, something so awful and I only thought about me, about my legs. I wallowed in self-pity, in my own sadness. I’ve let down… so many people, so many things… so many times. If only you knew… there is not a single day that I don’t regret some of these decisions I’ve made,” he stops and discreetly looks toward his forearm. Hank knows. 

 

“So, if you should be the last  _ students _ to which professor Xavier dispenses a lesson, I have to tell you: be proud of who you are. Whoever you are. Whatever your powers are. Be proud.” 

 

Dani deeply breathes in and Hank does the same, realizing he was holding his breath , absorbed by Charles’ speech. Warren nods and whispers a shy  _ thank you _ . Charles pats his arm.

 

“Well, now that I’m done with my long-winded speech, may I please ask you a glimpse of your powers?” 

 

Dani and Warren look at each other, visibly excited and embarrassed at the same time. Dani shakes her head and Hank understands she’s shy, given her red cheeks. Charles reassures her with a tender smile and turns to Warren who starts to unbutton his shirt.

 

“I need to take off my top… But my mutation isn’t that I’m a stripper, just to be clear.”

 

They all laugh and Warren gets out of the winter garden once he’s topless. Dani nods to tell them to follow her. Charles quickens his pace despite the cane and the three of them arrive on the terrace made of stones. In the middle of the garden, Warren stretches out his arms, lowers his head and focus. On his back are developing two protuberances of a light pink which are white under the sunbeams. The membrane retracts and reveals hundreds of small feathers which gives form to two wings. Unfolded, they’re three meters wide and Hank has to put back his glasses on his nose to be sure that what he sees really exists in front of him. Warren looks at them a bit more before jumping up and powerfully beating his wings to fly away. From the corner of his eyes, Hank sees Charles’ hand closing around the knob of his cane, but he himself is too absorbed by Warren’s movements in the sky to focus on anything else. And even if it’s beautiful, even if Warren’s mutation is simply incredible, he can’t help feeling a pang of pain in his heart when he thinks about Sean. He suspects Charles is thinking about him too but the professor keeps on smiling, nodding, and  _ yes _ that’s what they have to do: concentrate on the hope to discover new mutants rather than mope around about those who had left way too early.

 

Warren spends almost two minutes in the sky and finally lands with grace. He gets closer and they see his red cheeks and his odd, wind-swept hair from all his flying. 

 

“Beautiful,” Charles says breathlessly. He observes him in his whole and Hank can’t stop his scientific curiosity from pushing him  to get closer to his friend’s back to check how his wings are attached to his body. 

 

“I was sure it would intrigue you.” Warren laughs at his friend.

 

“Sorry, but it is quite marvelous ... “ 

 

They talk for ten more minutes, what Warren’s body needs to fold his wings back and it’s soon as if they never existed. Dani gives him back his shirt and they both go back to the mansion. Charles and Hank look at them, moving closer and brushing shoulders as they talk.

 

“Charles, you need to reopen the school.”

 

They turn to face each other before the professor offers him a radiant smile.

 

“I know.” 

 

* * *

 

 

In Hank’s head there are formulas he has come up to try to repair Cerebro’s condenser. This was to be expected as they didn’t use his  _ baby _ since what feels like centuries. He arrives at his bedroom and gets ready to sleep at least for eight straight hours when Dani’s smile appears in the hallway. She’s already in her pajamas, a long white dress with lace flowing gracefully on her dark skinned shoulders. She has fixed her hair in a loose braid and removed the two lines of eye-liner. Hank keeps his door closed to not scare her with the mess hiding behind it. 

 

“Did you succeed in making your machine work?”

 

“Not yet, I need to work on it a bit first. If you want I’ll show you how it works… once it’s ready.”

 

“With pleasure.”

 

She’s resting against the wall. She looks at him seeming to be waiting for something so Hank doesn’t hold back anymore:

 

“Dani, I wanted to thank you. Thank you for everything. I’ll never forget what you guys did for me. And for Charles.”

 

“Don’t worry, you needed us. And he needed you.”

 

He faintly nods and surprises himself by wondering what they would have been, him and her, if Charles never had sent him the letter. She is a wonderful girl, beautiful and kind. They had a connection that could have led to something more. But as he’ll never have an answer, he prefers not to think about it too much. He smiles:

 

“By the way, is Stephanie a mutant too?”

 

“Ah, no… She knows about me and Warren, though. She’ll be very jealous when she learns you have powers too,” Dani says before she affectionately laughs. 

 

“So… what’s yours? If you don’t want to show them to me, you can just tell me,” Hank asks, excited by the simple fact that the Xavier mansion is a shelter for mutants again.

 

She slightly bites her bottom lip, still shy about it, and stands straight, putting her braid on her back to get ready.

 

“I can create illusions. Do you want to try?”

 

“Yeah,” he says encouragingly.

 

“Do you want the fear or desire version?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, I can only create illusions if the thoughts are already anchored in the person. I can’t, for example, give you the illusion you’re flying like Warren if it’s not something you really wish to do.”

 

“Wow, all right, you must be redoutable in a fight!”

 

“I don’t use my powers to fight, Hank,” she corrects, a bit confused as to why he could have such an idea.   
  
He apologizes and keeps quiet about what happened in Cuba ten years ago. He tells her he’d like to try the  _ fear thing _ . He hates spiders and fire, so he warns her and she promises to not make the illusion last for more than five seconds. She asks him to rest against the wall, to be sure he won’t fall backward if he faces a fake giant spider and makes him close his eyes. Her voice is soft, she keeps repeating it’s only a demonstration, that it’s not real and he nods, eager to see how it will feel like. 

 

_ It’s cold before he was able to feel the change in temperature. He’s outside. It’s dark and his feet, blue, are covered with stones. His legs and arms too. He turns his head and recognizes a pile of wood with carvings he recognizes as belonging to the double stairs; he’s under the Xavier mansion ruins and there are screams around him. It smells of burnt wood and death. And Hank still can’t move.  _

 

“Hank, can you hear me? It’s me, it’s Dani…”

 

He has to open his eyes twice before he recognizes her face in front of his, which is prickling. He looks at his hands and they are bigger, blue. He started to transform by reflex so it takes a little while before he finds the courage to direct his gaze up and meet her eyes, terrified that when he does, he’ll see that all too familiar look in other people’s faces the moment they see him in this form, but Dani is tenderly smiling at him.

 

“So, this is your mutation.”

  
  


“Yeah… I can fully transform into  _ this _ . I’m sorry, it’s not really a pretty sight.”

 

She discreetly raises her eyes to the ceiling and strokes his shoulder as she’s putting a balm on him and the cold that settled during the illusion is finally leaving his body. He’s back in the hallway, in his house, and everything is as it’s always been. The real life.

 

“I… didn’t expect that. Did you see it too?”

 

“I did,” she confirms, nodding, “you’re attached to this place.”

 

“Yeah… It would take a bit too long to explain.” 

 

“No need. To be honest, and even if I haven’t lived here as long as you have, I think I can understand you. Professor Xavier offered me a job here, when I’m done with my master’s degree.”

 

He gets up, stroking his face, half-transformed, and wonders:

 

“Would you like to work here?”

 

“I don’t know… Maybe. I’ll come back in September to give my answer to the professor. Maybe we could… have a drink at that time?”

 

He breathes in and in his head are their dates, the discotheque where they embraced each other, the only kiss Hank thinks about, sometimes. But they’re alone in this hallway and her gaze doesn’t have the same affection that has linked them for a few weeks. The distance between them spoke of fondness and mutual care akin to siblings rather than attraction, which tends to draw bodies together, wanting more. It defines the friendship in which they’re finding their footing again. Hank smiles.

 

“I’d like that.” 

 

* * *

 

Hank stretches out and cracks his knuckles. He blames himself for offering his help to Charles because now he’s stuck cleaning the professor’s bedroom while there’s beaming sunshine outside. Charles gets consumed by bouts of euphoria on every little discovery he makes (“ _ Oh, this matchbox comes from an hotel in Madrid where we stayed twenty years ago with Raven _ .”, “ _ I love this picture! It’s a dog who was missing a paw that I saw in Washington. I always wondered if dogs and cats could be mutants too. Look at his nose. So cute _ .”) so everything takes even more time. Hank lets him tell stories upon stories of these little tokens of treasured memories, enjoying the way his eyes light up at remembering each of them. But a shadow behind these smiles is palpable too, like a coming storm. Probably, the professor’s good mood is a mask to hide the real reason behind this agitation: when he’ll be forced to use his chair again, he won’t be able to move around  with the same ease. It’s only a matter of days, weeks maybe. The pain seems to be less now but his legs aren’t as steady anymore. He uses his cane more than ever and sits whenever he can. 

 

Sitting on the red sofa, he’s throwing on his right the papers he wants to keep and on his left the ones they can put in the fireplace. Hank puts in a cardboard box all the objects covering the writing desk that they’ll put in another room as Charles could never pass between the furniture and the wall with his chair. He’s pleased with the fact that he can put away the sculptures made of wire he had always thought were creepy and stops when his fingers land on a cylindrical statue.

 

“You don’t want to keep Alex’s gift here?”

 

Charles raises his head and his smile tenses. He’s flagrantly searching for something to answer with but Hank understands:

 

"Was it Erik...?"

 

It's the first time his name resonates in the house since Hank came back and the simple mention of that name is enough to bring with it memories they won't ever be able to forget. Charles heavily sighs, absolutely not ready to have this talk, but Hank's hairs on his hand are already becoming blue so, they're finally going to talk about it. 

 

"That night you came to my bedroom, you didn't fall on the stairs, right? It's him who hit you? It's because of him you wanted me to cut your hair?"

 

"We fought, yes, but he didn't hit me," Charles corrects with a firm voice, eluding the last question. 

 

" _ And when I found you almost dead, laying on the ground in my laboratory, it wasn't his fault  _ ?" Hank growls, his voice morphing into his beast voice. 

 

His hands are now fully blue and he knows that if he's going to kill Erik one day (and he already has a thousand reasons to do so) it will be because of the one Charles is giving him right now. He remembers the disastrous state in which he found the house when he came back two months ago. And when he thinks about the fact that Charles didn't have his powers back then, meanwhile Erik... Hank shakes his head and bites his lips with his fangs: he's fully transforming. The blue fur is appearing all over his body and he has to hold on to the closet to not fall. His breathing gets heavier and heavier and he lets escape a moan as his body rips itself off in two to let the Beast out. 

 

"That night… what happened...?" he asks with a dark and deep voice. He turns around and faces Charles. 

 

The vision must be a shock for him as he haven’t seen Hank in this state for at least five years. Even if he's working on rehabilitating his laboratory bit by bit as they decided Charles won't use his serum anymore, Hank decided he won't use it either. He almost transforms once a week now, for stupid things (last time was when he put too much toothpaste on his toothbrush). But with the conversation they're about to have, he couldn't control himself. 

 

"I told him I didn't have my powers anymore because of the serum. When you left, Hank, I... I was using it all the time. At first, he was following your advice, he was only giving it to me when I was in pain, but then... I made him believe my back was hurting me so many times to make him give me the serum. And it became... Necessary?"

 

"Did he hit you?"

 

"No, Hank, stop thinking about things like this. Erik never hit me. That night I thought that... My God, I really thought he was going to break my bones, but he didn't. We spent the night together and when I woke up the next morning... I don't even know how I was able to send you the letter you told me about. I don't remember a lot of things, just that he left and..." Charles doesn't finish his sentence because it seems like there are no words that could describe that precise morning. "I was so lonely. I needed a dose so I went to your laboratory and he had destroyed absolutely everything. There was a bit of serum on the ground so I tried to lick it. I remember the awful taste and that I highly regretted what I did so... Then the only thing I remember is waking up in my bed, facing a young woman who was talking about lettuce while checking out your bottom every time you were leaning towards the window and thought you weren’t not looking."

 

Hank blinks, not quite sure if he is going to laugh or get annoyed. He ends up defending himself:

 

"Stephanie doesn't look at my bottom."

 

"Not anymore but she used to."

 

"This is absolutely not the conversation I want to have right now."

 

Charles' teeth are peeking as he nibbles his bottom lip before he laughs heartily. Hank sighs because it's impossible to stay mad with this man when he laughs like this, even if he is telling the end of a story he knows not to be simple at all. 

 

"Hank, I know it's not an easy thing I'm asking you to do, but don't be too hard on Erik."

 

"You're right, it's not something easy and I don’t think I could."

 

"I'm as responsible as he is."

 

" _ No _ ," Hank almost barks. 

 

"You weren't there. Trust me, Hank, I'm not the little irreproachable and innocent professor everyone thinks I am."

 

"I know," Hank answers, nodding. 

 

They look at each other in the eye and don't talk anymore. When Charles deeply breathes in, Hank blinks and tries to find something to occupy himself. He takes the cardboard box (that he finds so much lighter now that he's transformed) puts the cylindrical statue in, and gets ready to leave the room before he stops and confesses:

 

"I'm sorry I left."

 

Still sitting on the sofa, Charles turns around to look at him, resting his elbow on the back of the chair.

 

"Don’t be. I'm glad you did."

 

And of course, Charles is right. Because that's what they both needed. Hank learns everyday a bit more about life and sometimes the most painful paths are the ones you can't avoid. He looks at the bedroom they have cleaned for the wheelchair, Charles settled in a position he soon won't be able to leave anymore, and of course Hank knows he's not irreproachable nor innocent. Hank might not be the best man on Earth to understand all the subtlety psychology of a human mind, but he knows this about the professor. He has always known it. And it doesn't affect what he's feeling for him. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

“It’s the best assurance we’re offering you today, mister Xavier. You made an excellent choice,” Mrs. Lambert says joyfully, sitting next to Suppe who is noisily drinking the tea Hank served.

 

They’re all settled in the green office, the one in which Charles welcomed the promoters and his banker. Initially, they were supposed to have the meeting at three in New Rochelle but Hank called Suppe and Lambert to tell them Charles Xavier’s state didn’t allow for him to move that far. The two colleagues - as professionals as driven by the idea that they were going to sign a one million dollar contract - graciously accepted to come. Truth is that Charles is still able to walk, but it wears him out and there are at least sixty steps to get to Suppe’s office that he wouldn’t have been able to climb. Charles smiles when Hank gives him a fountain pen and asks with a sweet simplicity:

 

“Am I insured against explosions, then?”

 

“Er, yes…” Mrs. Lambert confirms, frowning. 

 

“The whole mansion, covering all of the eighteen-hectare-land area, which also includes the stables and the basements?”

 

“Of course…”

 

“Without forgetting the welfare and safety of all the people living here, may that be in case of injury, burning, laceration, drowning, or radiation?” 

 

Hank has to discreetly bite his fist to not laugh in front of Lambert’s aghast face who nearly faints.

 

“Are you planning on receiving young delinquents here, Doctor Xavier?” Suppe asks, not really reassured but already used to the millionaire’s eccentricities

 

“Oh yes, I love bad boys,” Charles answers, smiling to Hank who smiles just as much. 

 

Charles seems to have tortured Suppe and Lambert enough as he doesn’t add anything and scribbles his initials on the paper before he finishes with his majestic signature - on par with his fortune. Suppe literally jubilates behind his square glasses and Lambert gets up, repeating how much the house is beautiful. Hank gets up in his turn and they all turn to Charles who addresses them a polite yet sorry smile.

 

“Please, forgive me if I stay here while Hank sees you to the door.”

 

“Of course, don’t bother. Have a great afternoon, Doctor Xavier, we’ll see you again soon, I hope!” 

 

Hank takes them to the door and shakes their hands. He waits on the front step until the car disappears behind the pines before he goes back inside. He bursts out a laugh when he’s back in the room where  the most  _ interesting  _ contract signing in the whole world took place, and starts to pile the empty cup of tea.

 

“ _ We’ll see you again soon I hope _ , I bet he does! With a contract that expensive, they’ll want to make you sign little pieces of papers more and more. Did you see Lambert’s face when you mentioned laceration?”

 

Charles is lightly smiling, both of his arms resting on the wooden armrests. He’s still not moving and Hank wonders what will be his next joke.

 

“What?”

 

“I can’t move my legs, Hank,” simply answers Charles in a very soft voice. 

 

Hank puts back the tray and looks at the body sitting in front of him. His smile fades. He breathes in and nods.

 

“Okay… well… okay.”

 

He gets closer and pulls the chair. He barely focuses and transforms into Beast in a few seconds. He’ll need his strength to carry Charles back to his room.

 

“Thank God it didn’t happen in New Rochelle. Can you picture this? Me, stuck in Suppe’s office!” the professor laughs.

 

“Yeah, so you say, but you would have loved me carrying you like a prince in front of everyone to get you back to the car,” he teases him, leaning to put an arm under his knees and the other one in his back.

 

“Be respectful, young man, you’re talking to Charles Xavier, Director of the  _ Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngster.”  _

 

They both smile and that’ll be the balm for their souls. Charles takes the file he just signed safely in his hands and Hank brings him up to his bedroom. They don’t talk about the motionless legs, only about the four teachers Charles wants to hire. Hank puts Charles on a sofa and brings back the wheelchair from the boudoir across the hallway. When he pushes it to Charles, he inspects his face but only discerns a smile albeit a bit forced. 

 

“What a nice racing car you have there,” Charles fakes an absolute admiration.

 

“Maybe we should get you a helmet, in case you’re going over 100 miles per hour.”

 

“Good point.”

 

Hank moves forward a bit more and Charles helps himself with his arms to move from the sofa to the wheelchair. He touches it with all his curiosity, fingers the wheels and turns around to face Hank.

 

“It’s almost better than an Aston Martin.”

 

“Almost,” Hank confirms, nodding.

 

“Don’t be too jealous.”

 

“I’ll try.”

 

They smile at each other.

  
  


* * *

 

 

“Once a week now! It’s going to drive me crazy!” 

 

“I give up…”

 

“Maybe it’s the phone line that has a problem?”

 

“I don’t see why. My parents called me one hour ago and everything was working fine.”

 

Hank stops in front of the open double-door, intrigued. “What’s happening?” he asks, walking in.

 

Warren is on the phone, repeating  _ Hello? Is anyone there? _ without getting an answer. Dani and Stephanie are playing cards, sitting on the red couch, and they explain to Hank:

 

“It’s always the same thing: someone calls and as soon as we pick up, the person hangs up.”

 

“Look, I don’t think he hung up this time, Warren’s still on the phone…”

 

“Great, so what is it? Some kind of a sexist prank?” Stephanie interjects, cursing under her breath and raising her eyes to the ceiling.

 

Hank looks at Warren, the phone still against his ear and he remembers the first time it happened, two days after the all arrived at the mansion. He’s always with Charles when that kind of phone call happens and he realizes that maybe it’s not anodyne if the person hangs up when his friends answer. He enters the room and quickly stretches out a hand to ask the phone from Warren who frowns. He gives it to him and Hank doesn’t wait a second more:

 

“It’s me, Hank.”

 

On the other side of the line, there’s a sigh.

 

_ Erik. _

 

He turns around and waves to tell his friends to leave the room. They look at him, surprised, so he insists with a cold stare to make them understand he’s not kidding. They all go out and once Warren closes the double doors, Hank takes the handset with him and slowly walks through the room.

 

“I arrived a few days after you left. Charles was… I came back just in time.” 

 

He doesn’t finish his sentence and hopes, in a kind of cruel way, that Erik will imagine the worst and that it’ll haunt him all the nights he’ll try to find sleep. But even the worst he could imagine can’t be as horrible as what Hank actually had to live through that day anyway. 

 

“Charles is… He’s doing okay, now. He’s using his chair, two days and counting. He’s planning on opening the school again.”

 

No answer. Hank really wants to make a comment about the state of his laboratory but he doesn’t want Erik to hang up yet.

 

“He’s better,” he adds without precisely knowing why. He bitterly laughs too, “He’s even better than before you came back here…”

 

He stops in front of the window, looks at the park, the newly cut grass, the fountain of which he doesn’t hear the sound. He talks, without thinking, to a man who doesn’t even answer him and in his head are mixing memories of Charles barely standing on his feet and stumbling because of all the alcohol he used to drink the first year that followed the closing of the school. Behind him, on the mahogany desk, there are the inscription files they’re writing, while one year ago, it was simply out of the question for the school to re-open one day. Now, there’s Charles Xavier’s laugh which is giving life to the house, may it be thanks to one of his incomprehensible joke (to whomever isn’t a geneticist) or when he’s watching  _ Happy Days _ in the television room. And it’s his voice which is motivating the young mutants to accept themselves, every day a bit more. 

 

Hank  _ understands _ .

 

“ _ You _ sent me the letter.” 

 

It makes sense now, because Charles would have never wrote “ _ come back to the mansion _ ” but  _ “come back home _ ” as he always called it. Hank took a while to understand this because there were two men in the house at that time and he didn’t even think Erik was capable of such a deed. A good one. A selfless one.

 

He gathers all his courage, keeps quiet all that hate he has always felt towards Magneto with the best will in the world and confesses for the first and only time:

 

“It worked. Whatever you did or said that night. It worked. Charles is… Charles Xavier again. Charles is doing okay.”

 

Because he started with this and he’ll end the conversation with this. It’s all what matters to them in the end. On the phone, he hears a breath in.

 

“Goodbye, Erik.”

 

“Goodbye, Hank.”

 

They both hang up. Hank stays a bit more in front of the window even if he’s not looking at anything in particular. Then he brings back the dial phone to the table with the marble on it and neatens up the cables to be sure no one will stumble over them. He opens the double door to exit the room and has to stop: in front of him, there’s Charles in his wheelchair. He looks at him straight in the eyes. They’re alone in the hallway and Hank knows he won’t be able to avoid this conversation. 

 

“Who was it?” Charles asks and it’s clear in his voice that he  _ knows _ .

 

Hank releases the doorknobs and wonders what to say, how to say it, but Charles doesn’t seem to want to be protected. Not anymore.

 

“It was Erik. He wanted to know how you are doing.”

 

Charles is looking at him, encouraging him to keep going.

 

“I told him the school is about to reopen. And that you are doing okay.”

 

This time, Charles breathes in through his nose and nods. His lips stretch out in a smile before he asks:

 

“... Well. We’re going for a walk. Are you coming with us?”

 

Hank looks at him a bit more to try to detect the slightest weakness in that calm face which seems, for the first time in a long time, pacified. But there’s nothing that is perturbing him. He nods and closes the door behind him. Walking next to the professor, he can’t help but look at him. It makes Charles smile. He raises his eyes to him to admit, with his most honest voice:

  
“I’m fine, Hank.”


	11. Epilog

**Note:** Hello everyone! Well, this is the last chapter of _Every Thought in Bewteen_. I'm a bit sad it's the end but at the same time I'm really happy I had the chance to share this story with you. It's a project that took month, as I first wrote it in French, then I translated it en English, before my amazing beta **Mugen** (or **deadoralive0013** here on AO3) corrected it. I'm so happy I contributed a bit to the X-Men fandom that is utterly fantastic. I weekly meet amazing authors, readers, fans from all over the world and it's a blessing. And I'm particularly happy because it's the first fanfic with chapters I'm completing! Yay!  
Once again, thank you all, I wouldn't have the strenght to finish this story without your support. And If you enjoyed this story, please don't hesitate in writing a comment, it's always so lovely to read some feedback :)

**Beta:** the fantastic **Mugen**. We're 6000 miles away and yet I felt your support and energy as if you were sitting next to me the whole time I was writing this fic. _Thank you so much._

* * *

 

Dani, Warren and Stephanie are leaving tomorrow morning at seven with Stephanie’s car. They all wanted to see the sea for their last day together and Charles told them it was a brilliant idea. Hank put him on the passenger side and he settled on the back seat with Dani and Warren. They turned on the radio and put the volume at its maximum which gained the attention of the unsuspecting old men and women living in the seafront. Charles greeted them by moving his hand like an English prince mingling with the crowd.

 

There’s an euphoria quite perceptible as Warren and Stephanie agreed to join the Xavier Institute to become professors. Stephanie is overjoyed over the fact that she’ll live around mutants and that she’ll give lessons on dance and body language. Dani didn’t confirm if she’ll be there too but Charles confessed to Hank that he had felt her desire to be a part of the school, even if he didn’t particularly search through her mind.

 

His powers are coming back bit by bit. They’re blurry but he is relieved to find that they still exist. Hank daily helps him to regain all his capacities, with a few words or sentences they can exchange through their minds.

 

_ ‘It’s cold on the backseat.’ _

 

_ ‘All right, I’m closing the window.’ _

 

Hank smiles when he sees the professor’s hand working the handle. They park on a parking lot where the wind brought some grain of sand with it. Stephanie gets off the car first and runs to the beach, arms wide open as if she could fly and she shouts, “ _ Guess who I’m imitating? _ ” that makes the rest of the group laugh. Warren follows her and Dani first takes off her ballet pumps before going down in her turn. They’re becoming so small that they look like toys even before Hank put Charles on the chair he took out from the trunk. They get closer to the small esplanade on their right to look at the tide, the waves slow and long, the few birds which seem to particularly like to fly above Warren’s head. Hank is standing straight, his hands in his pockets. He smells the sea air and slightly shivers when the breeze goes through the stitches of his sweater to caress his skin. The sun will soon set and the sky is covered in a brilliant orange in all its immensity. 

 

“Do you remember, when we were in Paris, when Logan proposed that we hide Erik back home? He said that, in the future, me and him were getting on well… Or  _ fine _ . Yes, he most certainly said  _ get along just fine _ ,” Charles recounts, the last bit making him laugh. Hank looks at him. “It was either that, either we let him disappear. It’s true he has always been very good in disappearing when he wanted to…” He laughs again, facing the beach.   
  
They stay silent for a few more minutes, listening to the sea before Charles smiles, looking at Hank.

 

“Well, I guess we’ll see what the future will bring. As there’ll be several of it apparently…” 

 

This time, it’s Hank who laughs, raising his eyebrows - he still doesn’t know what he thinks about going back in time or back to the future, all those stuff that complicate his comprehension of the space-time continuum. 

 

“You’re not going on the beach?” Charles ends up asking with a soft voice.

 

Hank slightly turns around to answer him:

 

“It’s not very pleasant with my shoes on."

 

“You don’t have to hide. Not because of me. Not because of them,” he adds, looking at the rest of the group.

 

Hank still looks at him a few more seconds before a smile forms on his lips and nods. He bypasses the barrier and hears behind him Charles’ wheels rolling on the asphalt where the sand is crackling. He comes down the few meters covered with sand and checks around him to make sure they’re alone before he takes off his shoes and socks. He lets everything close to the barrier and his whole body shivers when his feet touch the tepid sand. It’s even better than what he imagined, he feels so light even if he sinks at each steps as if the Earth was leaning to his presence. It also tickles a bit but it’s mainly calming, like the whisper of someone who’s dear to one. He turns around and smiles at Charles.

 

_ ‘How does it feel?’ _

 

_ ‘It’s awesome.’  _

 

_ ‘Can I feel it too?’  _ Charles asks, getting his hand closer to his right temple to focus.

 

Hank nods and Charles thanks him. He closes his eyes and focus, creating wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. Hank feels like he’s not the only one inhabited by the sensation of the sand under his feet. He looks at his toes that he’s moving so that the feeling can go back to Charles. It lasts one minute, maybe two, before he raises his gaze to look at the professor, who still has his eyes closed. His hair grew a bit, but he went to the hairdresser last week. It’s the breeze that makes a lock dance on his forehead. 

 

When he reopens his eyes and looks at him, Hank understands it’s not only the sensation of what the sand is giving him that Charles has the echo of. It’s also all the love Hank feels for him. So, Charles tenderly smiles at him and takes his fingers off from his temple before resting his hands on his knees. Hank smiles too and turns around. He looks at the sea, Warren, Dani and Stephanie. Things will take their own courses and school will reopen. They don’t know yet how much students they’ll welcome this year but Hank will be here to see the institute become a symbol of hope, equality, and peace for all generations to come. He believes so.

 

And maybe one day there’ll be a place in Charles’ heart and his arms will open to someone other than Erik. When the time comes, Hank will still know how to embrace him as close as possible to his heart and to never stop loving him.

 

Or maybe one day, to feel Charles close to him, to hear his voice, and his laugh won’t be the only things that will create in him the unfailing and beautiful impression that all the wonders of the world gathered in one person only. There’ll be women giving a new tempo to his nights, then to his life. Dani, maybe.

 

_ We’ll see see what the future will bring _ , Charles’ voice repeats and Hank doesn’t know if it’s a memory or if Charles is projecting. 

 

Meanwhile, Hank moves his toes and looks at the sand sliding in small rises between them. He raises a hand and makes his fingers dance on a light wind that seems to give him an impetus. So Hank moves forward.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr :) 


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